All Branch Topic (ABT) HPSP Peds Help

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chaseschertz

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Hi, I'm new to sdn, but have been reviewing forum posts about HPSP for the last couple of days. I am a senior in college, and have been recently accepted into medical school. I don't have a lot of money, and it worries me to even think if I will be comfortable in med school. Recently, I discovered this HPSP scholarship and no, I don't necessarily want to do it for the money. I've always had an appreciation for all branches of the military, and have family members who have been in the military, and I love this country. I think this would be an amazing experience- to have med school paid for, be paid the stipends every month, have the opportunity to travel to Germany, Italy, South Korea, or any place in between etc etc and to serve my country. The majority of my questions have been answered through other threads, but I just wanted to know the perspective of someone who received the HPSP and wanted to go into pediatrics. How is this different? Thanks - all information is helpful.

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Its different because pediatrics is a noncompetitive residency in the real world and quite a competitive residency in the military. Peds subspecialties are particularly competitive and training quotas are unpredictable and can be deferred rather than FTOS. There is risk that they will stop training all together.
 
Hi, I'm new to sdn, but have been reviewing forum posts about HPSP for the last couple of days. I am a senior in college, and have been recently accepted into medical school. I don't have a lot of money, and it worries me to even think if I will be comfortable in med school. Recently, I discovered this HPSP scholarship and no, I don't necessarily want to do it for the money. I've always had an appreciation for all branches of the military, and have family members who have been in the military, and I love this country. I think this would be an amazing experience- to have med school paid for, be paid the stipends every month, have the opportunity to travel to Germany, Italy, South Korea, or any place in between etc etc and to serve my country. The majority of my questions have been answered through other threads, but I just wanted to know the perspective of someone who received the HPSP and wanted to go into pediatrics. How is this different? Thanks - all information is helpful.

I'm Peds

Differences:

1) Military Peds can, in a bad year, be competitive. Not ortho competitive, but you might need an above average step 1 score.

2) The road to fellowship is complicated. Most fellowships are only available once every several years, so you should be prepared to serve out your obligation in General Pediatrics

3) Almost all fellows who are selected had to do a utilization tour first. That means you will spend at least 2 years a general Pediatrician

4) Almost all of our Pediatricians start out as 'full scope', meaning you have to take call in a nursery and also act as a consultant for the ED. A lot of Pediatricians hate doing this, because its easily the most stressful part of the job.

5) Because the jobs are all full scope, the residencies are all very heavy on NICU. Again, this is usually everyone's least favorite rotation, and the military does twice as much of it as the average civilian residency.

6) The clinic population has almost no adolescents. If you want to work with older kids you are going to either need to come to a special arrangement with your command or find outside work.

Still, its probably more similar to civilian work than most specialties. Similar workload and similar acuity.

BTW you probably won't get to travel to Germany or Italy. The Navy has a ton of spots in Japan and Okinawa, but other than that cool countries are for people who sign up for second tours. First tours are for swamps, deserts, and small islands.
 
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Awesome! When(if) you were deployed, how did that work?

edit: I really don't know much terminology, and I'm still working on talking to a recruiter so I may not understand the first tour/second tour terms
 
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Awesome! When(if) you were deployed, how did that work?

edit: I really don't know much terminology, and I'm still working on talking to a recruiter so I may not understand the first tour/second tour terms
I have not deployed. If you deploy, you will be either a GMO or an SMO. That means you will be providing primary care, emergency care, and supervising corpsmen who do the same for a group of Marines or Sailors. Most GMOs will be sent out in between their first and second years of residency. Anyone can do an SMO tour but most of the Pediatricians I knew who did it went 3 years after they graduated from residency. This is really more about being a generic doctor than about being a Pediatrician, they can and do use any specialty for these assignments. There is no wartime role for a general Pediatrician, though we do sometimes deploy Pediatric Critical Care doctors to the bigger wars.

You could also be sent on the Mercy or the Comfort for 4-6 months. That's not technically a deployment but is kind of similar: you provide medical care to sick children in poor but strategically important countries that you travel to by hospital ship. There is a role for General Pediatricians on the Mercy (a whole lot of them, actually).

What I meant by the tour thing is that the Navy tries to give the cooler assignments to the more senior people, as an incentive to stay in. Your first three years our of residency will probably be somewhere that people don't particularly want to go, either because its awful or because its halfway around the world from everyone you know and love. No San Diego or DC. No Pensacola or Washington State. No Italy or Germany. Yes crappy deserts, crappy swamps, or Japan.
 
OP, I think you missed Gastrapathy's comment that the mil may cut peds training altogether. Congress is always looking to cut funding to milmed, and the latest talk is that if a medical specialty does not contribute directly to getting a 21 y/o trigger puller to deploy, then the mil will not train docs in that specialty. Granted, it's likely all talk, but it should scare you to know that your potential medical career in the military is beholden to a smiling psychopath in a suit with a flag pin on the lapel.

Keep reading this forum, and consider your likely to change career path. You may end up in peds, but you haven't even started your med school orientation yet. It's a long road in front of you and a lot can change. HPSP will lock you in to time in the military, and you may find in 4 years that agreement is not ideal. You may get married, you may want to move back to your home town, you may decide that you want to do neurosurgery (good luck doing that in the mil). How do you think you will feel when you are pining for a return to pediatrics training but you are stuck on some crappy base in the middle of nowhere seeing 19 year olds with knee pain and fat NCOs who want sleep studys?

I know that loans are scary but HPSP is too much a gamble for a pre-med to sign away his/her career too before ever having set foot in a medical school classroom. If you are interested in the military, consider FAP (read the sticky on the home page). At any rate, congrats on getting in, and keep reading this forum before you sign up. FWIW, recruiters for HPSP are excellent NCOs who are great soldiers and know precisely nothing about being a doctor in the military. This is the best place to find information on what that life is like.
 
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OP, I think you missed Gastrapathy's comment that the mil may cut peds training altogether. Congress is always looking to cut funding to milmed, and the latest talk is that if a medical specialty does not contribute directly to getting a 21 y/o trigger puller to deploy, then the mil will not train docs in that specialty. Granted, it's likely all talk, but it should scare you to know that your potential medical career in the military is beholden to a smiling psychopath in a suit with a flag pin on the lapel.

Keep reading this forum, and consider your likely to change career path. You may end up in peds, but you haven't even started your med school orientation yet. It's a long road in front of you and a lot can change. HPSP will lock you in to time in the military, and you may find in 4 years that agreement is not ideal. You may get married, you may want to move back to your home town, you may decide that you want to do neurosurgery (good luck doing that in the mil). How do you think you will feel when you are pining for a return to pediatrics training but you are stuck on some crappy base in the middle of nowhere seeing 19 year olds with knee pain and fat NCOs who want sleep studys?

I know that loans are scary but HPSP is too much a gamble for a pre-med to sign away his/her career too before ever having set foot in a medical school classroom. If you are interested in the military, consider FAP (read the sticky on the home page). At any rate, congrats on getting in, and keep reading this forum before you sign up. FWIW, recruiters for HPSP are excellent NCOs who are great soldiers and know precisely nothing about being a doctor in the military. This is the best place to find information on what that life is like.

Thank you so much!! Means a lot to me, this has helped me a lot.
 
The Navy cut it's number of training slots for pediatric internships across all three locations this year. Additionally, this year there is an increase in interest in the specialty. For the 14 total pediatric internship spots, it appears there are at least 20 or so applying. That means at least one-third of all people applying to pediatrics will not get it. That is not the case at all for US MD graduates.

Additionally, this year for the first time in what any one I have spoken with can recall, the Navy is requiring all HPSP students to applying through the NRMP/"civilian" match program because they have more students than there are spots. They gave absolutely zero instruction on why/who/how we should do this. Basically what this means is the students who were not selected for their two specialties they asked for are going to be told to find a preliminary or transitional year to match into out in the real world. Not exactly what anyone who signed up for HPSP imagined they would do.

Regardless for the specialty or branch of the military, you should not do HPSP for the money. It is not financial worth it for a vast majority of people.
 
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