You can ellect to apply for a civilian residency and match in March or you can apply for a military residency and match in December.
This is wrong.
You receive pay while in medical school, you receive pay while in residency (without worrying about student loans), and then you get base pay, and a housing allowance, annual bonus, monthly board certification pay, ect. on top of military benefits. The time commitment to the Navy is four years.
This is also wrong. The bit about the time commitment is
profoundly wrong.
In the civilian side you can apply for a residency and not get into any, military residency is just as completive.
I think you intended to write "competitive" there? I'm not sure what you mean by that in any case. But if the trend holds whatever you meant by it is probably wrong too.
It bugs me when recruiters and other ill-informed people pop in like this.
If any of you are interested in military scholarships I suggest you visit the
SDN Military Medicine subforum, read the stickies, do a search for HPSP and USUHS and FAP and related topics, and then post your questions.
HM1 Justin popped into the milmed forum today, where he bumped an old thread to declare himself a "subject matter expert on all things HPSP" which is a very odd thing to do, particularly when one is an E6. HPSP, the military match, pay, benefits, and the obligated service period are all very complex subjects.
HM1 Justin may mean well but he is not a good source of information.
To begin to answer some questions upthread, correctly:
So, if someone has no interest in doing a Navy residency they can choose to do a civilian residency of their choice? Or sometimes the Navy is okay with some of their people doing civilian residencies? Or, is it... You MAY also match to a civilian residency of your choice, but we MAY force you to stay in the Navy system?
If your medical school has been paid for via HPSP, you
must apply for an inservice intern (PGY1) year at a military hospital. Most people will match to one of those positions. As part of that application, you may request a civilian deferral, but these are uncommon, not always offered for every specialty every year, and when those slots do exist, they are not necessarily awarded based on merit. If you do not match to a military PGY1, then you must find a PGY1 spot as a civilian.
After the PGY1 year, whether in or out of the military, you
must apply for residency (PGY2+), unless you were granted a full deferment previously. In the Navy, outside of primary care residencies, it is the norm to NOT match to residency and NOT receive a civilian deferral, and then spend 2-3 years as a General Medical Officer with a ship, with the Marines, or doing something like flight or dive medicine.
After this GMO tour is complete, one can re-apply to residency, and at this point, the extra time in service typically earns enough points to make matching very likely. Or, some people just serve out 4 years as a GMO, get out of the military, and go do civilian residencies. These applicants are generally very well received by civilian programs, provided their grades and board scores were at least reasonably competitive in the first place.
A military PGY1 year does not pay back time owed, nor does it add additional obligation. It's neutral time.
Time spent in a military residency incurs a year-for-year obligation, but this is paid back
concurrently with the medical school HPSP obligation. Time in residency does not pay back time owed from HPSP. When you finish an inservice residency, you owe the greater of either the HPSP obligation, or the residency obligation. (Note that GMO time, if any, pays down the HPSP obligation.)
It is complicated, but the end result is that a 4-year HPSP obligation always results in more than 4 years of service. You won't graduate in 2018 and get out of the military in 2022. You might graduate in 2018, finish internship in 2019 (owing 4 now), spend 3 years as a flight surgeon (owing 1 now in 2022), then do a 3 year residency (owing 3 now in 2025), then serve those 3 years, then get out in 2028. Ten years in uniform, after medical school. Another path is graduate in 2018, finish internship in 2019 (owe 4), do a GMO tour for 4 years, get out in 2023, and go be a civilian resident somewhere (while supplementing residency pay with some GI Bill $).
Pay while on active duty is also complex. Bottom line, depending on many factors, inservice military residents can expect to earn about $60-80K per year. GMOs tend to earn about the same, sometimes a bit more. After residency, most attendings will earn between $110K and $125K during the obligated/payback period.
The thing I'm concerned about is whether or not it is more difficult to match into a civilian residency as a Navy officer compared to a regular medical student.
Furthermore, the restrictions military residency programs have in terms of applying to fellowships...
In general, people getting out of the military to apply to civilian residency after doing their time as GMOs are not at a competitive disadvantage. The military service is an asset for most.
Fellowships while on active duty after a military residency vary from year to year. Recently it has become more difficult across the board for a variety of reasons. It is also very specialty dependent.
Are you required to go over seas? Or can you stay in the US?
You may be deployed overseas, usually someplace nasty (though as physicians the real risk is quite low), and indeed I would join expecting to at some point. A deployment is just you, no family, for usually about 7 months in the Navy. However there are shorter deployments, sometimes ... and during the height of Iraq/Afghanistan some deployments were longer.
You may be stationed overseas, though this is less common and for the most part, overseas billets go to people who ask for them. Family usually goes with you (ie to places like Japan, Guam, Spain, Italy) ... caveat, the really nice foreign posts tend to be taken by senior people. If you're just in for a couple years, you won't be going to Spain.
More answers in the milmed forum. There are a lot of disgruntled people there, but when it comes to questions that have actual facts for answers, they will all tell you the truth. You can sort through the opinions of personal experience yourself.
I graduated in 2002, interned until 2003, did a GMO tour with the Marines until 2006, finished anesthesiology residency in 2009, and am still in. More good than bad, for me.
Basic Requirements:
US Citizen
Commission (graduation) before age 42
MCAT > 29
GPA > 3.0
Physically Qualified
Applying to an Accredited U.S. Medical Program (MD or DO)
