Well, I've gotten myself into a pickle, and I thought maybe somebody here can offer a more experienced perspective on my situation. In short, I'm an intern with a 7 year ADSO, staring down the barrel of 7 years as a GMO/FS until I can get out of the military. I've realized (I think) through the course of medical school and internship that I'm not particularly interested in any certain specialty. I half-heartedly applied to IM residency this year (with good USMLE scores and promising interviews), but failed my APFT, which put the nails into that coffin. So looking on the bright side, I thought GMO/FS might just be the best thing for me, and I ranked Germany/Italy/anywhere OCONUS on the top of my list and hoped for the best. Well to complicate things, I recently had some personal matters come up and took a leave of absence from my program to take care of them, which will delay my graduation from internship and place me off-cycle. I communicated this to the GMO assignment officer, and he actually responded saying "well I had you down for Germany, but looks like we're going to have to cancel that...now your options are very limited given your off-cycle graduation". Naturally, I'm crushed. The hope of greener pastures was motivating me through this internship.
Does anybody here have experience with being off-cycle? I'm trying to stay positive and hope that something cool opens up and I can still do something operational 61N/62B, but the thought keeps popping into my head "your options are very limited".
To be clear, I'm looking to do something administrative with just a smattering of clinic, or something in the field, until my ADSO is up, and I can transition into non-clinical work as a civilian. I considered leaving internship altogether because of my lack of interest in any particular specialty, but that option was fraught with warning signs such as "you won't be able to use your MD in the private sector without at least internship completed", and "due to the Army draw-down and shift from war-time to garrison environment, you'll likely be other-than-honorably discharged with $$$$$$$ debt for your medical school and internship training". The obvious course of action to me would be complete the internship and go have fun in the field taking care of soldiers for a few years...and here we are. Any perspective/wisdom/advice that y'all can provide is greatly appreciated!
Does anybody here have experience with being off-cycle? I'm trying to stay positive and hope that something cool opens up and I can still do something operational 61N/62B, but the thought keeps popping into my head "your options are very limited".
To be clear, I'm looking to do something administrative with just a smattering of clinic, or something in the field, until my ADSO is up, and I can transition into non-clinical work as a civilian. I considered leaving internship altogether because of my lack of interest in any particular specialty, but that option was fraught with warning signs such as "you won't be able to use your MD in the private sector without at least internship completed", and "due to the Army draw-down and shift from war-time to garrison environment, you'll likely be other-than-honorably discharged with $$$$$$$ debt for your medical school and internship training". The obvious course of action to me would be complete the internship and go have fun in the field taking care of soldiers for a few years...and here we are. Any perspective/wisdom/advice that y'all can provide is greatly appreciated!
