My question is this: do recruiters lie deliberately or are they just misinformed and too lazy to look up the details. Either way, you do applicants an incredible disservice when you trot out typical bull**** like ""97% of applicants get one of their top three choices."
Maybe the pre-meds and first years who live at this site and exhort the rest of us to greater feats of selflessness will buy it, but I won't.
I am a soon-to-be Army GMO/FS. Didn't match in my specialty, and was DENIED the chance to match civilian. >10 interviews cancelled. HPSP wannabees beware.
Try this one on for size. This year, according to the OTSG (per a 16 DEC conversation I had with them) NO civilian deferments were given in the Army.
Shouldn't take a rocket scientist, then, to figure out where Army GMOs come from. The pool is filled with those who didn't match in the competitive specialties and weren't allowed to try civilian. Unless urology/ortho aspirants wanted to do family med and neurology. Incredibly, this choice was offered pre-match time by the OTSG as a way of inducing people to switch preferences and fill out the non-competitive specialties.
The GMO pipeline also gets fed from residency dropouts/kickouts. I knew a resident who got a DWI and guess where she's headed.
Finally, at least some Army surgery programs still operate pyramidally. That means that 6-7 residents might start but only 4 get a continuous contract post-PGY I. Guess where the other two go?
Long story short, GMO/FS is alive and well and in the Army. True, the straight through percentages are better than Navy/AF. But the number of Docs
is also much larger. With Army HPSP continuing to be woefully underfilled, I believe the pool will only get bigger.
Join the Army to serve. Realize the risks inherent, including interruption of training. DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING recruiters tell you. They are salesmen, and poor ones at that.
If anybody wants honest info, talk to AD docs, grade O-4 or below. If you want advice from my ltd perspective, as a newly graduated Allopathic doc who's been through the match (half of it) etc PM me.
Recruiter, stop with the lies and subterfuge.