Anesthesia Residency/Army Reserves

[stiz]

Hi, I'm an MS2 ... very interested in Anesthesia...

I'm also considering joining the reserves and would have to attend drills during residency. I'm curious what kind of a conflict this might create, if any, and whether or not most program directors have a friendly/accommodating attitude for interns/residents in this situation.

Is this something that is likely to help? hurt? or not affect? my application for residency programs in Anesthesia???

Thanks very much.

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[RussianJoo]

i would say hurt or not help.. a lot of times you only get 4 days off a month during your rotations the fact that you have a lot of other obligations and will have to miss work means other residents have to cover your work for you and no one wants that. if you want to do the whole army thing join now and do your reserve time now as a med student and then apply to a military residency.

 

[IDBasco]

The first thing you need to do is make sure they will let you serve as an anesthesiologist. I was looking into the national guard's ASR program a couple of years ago and they had a few specialties they weren't allowing. Anesthesiology was on the list and radiology was another one. I forget them all now, but there were a half dozen or so.

 

[pgg]

Get thee to the military medicine forum here on SDN and spend about a week reading and searching that forum.

ETA - I see you've found that forum. The answer is unequivocally YES being a member of the reserves in med school (presumably via HPSP; anything else would be crazy) will affect both your opportunity to apply and your opportunity accept a postion at the residency of your choice. If you enter via FAP once you're already a resident it won't significantly impact your residency but it WILL limit your fellowship opportunities should you decide you want to pursue one. But in this thread it sounds like you're talking about just joining the reserves without regard for your status as a soon-to-be physician, which I can say with a measure of certainty is a really, really bad idea.

 

[Monty Python]

Get thee to the military medicine forum here on SDN and spend about a week reading and searching that forum.

ETA - I see you've found that forum. The answer is unequivocally YES being a member of the reserves in med school (presumably via HPSP; anything else would be crazy) will affect both your opportunity to apply and your opportunity accept a postion at the residency of your choice. If you enter via FAP once you're already a resident it won't significantly impact your residency but it WILL limit your fellowship opportunities should you decide you want to pursue one. But in this thread it sounds like you're talking about just joining the reserves without regard for your status as a soon-to-be physician, which I can say with a measure of certainty is a really, really bad idea.

Yeah, what PGG said.




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[soon2b]

I'm in the ASR program. I personally don't believe it will hurt my application and in fact I think the opposite. State National Guards have a policy that requires them to be flexible with medical students and residents. If you have a weekend off and there is drill that weekend you should go. If on the other hand you are on call and cannot make it you just call and let your unit you can't. In some instances they might have you make it up while in others not. As far as deployments go, the current policy is that residents are non-deployable. They want trained physicians for the most part. I did meet a Major in the NG who volunteered to serve in Iraq during his med-peds residency. He said he had to jump through a number of hoops to get the guard to let him go. If you want to join then I'd read up on what others have to say in many of the forums. If you want to serve in the NG I don't see how a person could look at your application and say we don't like this guy. I would think more along the lines of this is a person who is willing to make sacrifices if called to do so and will do things to help the team rather than just himself. If it's a goal of yours to have military service in your lifetime then I'd consider it no matter how you think others will look at you. If you work hard you and are sincere in your goals you will be fine.

 

[BLADEMDA]

I'm in the ASR program. I personally don't believe it will hurt my application and in fact I think the opposite. State National Guards have a policy that requires them to be flexible with medical students and residents. If you have a weekend off and there is drill that weekend you should go. If on the other hand you are on call and cannot make it you just call and let your unit you can't. In some instances they might have you make it up while in others not. As far as deployments go, the current policy is that residents are non-deployable. They want trained physicians for the most part. I did meet a Major in the NG who volunteered to serve in Iraq during his med-peds residency. He said he had to jump through a number of hoops to get the guard to let him go. If you want to join then I'd read up on what others have to say in many of the forums. If you want to serve in the NG I don't see how a person could look at your application and say we don't like this guy. I would think more along the lines of this is a person who is willing to make sacrifices if called to do so and will do things to help the team rather than just himself. If it's a goal of yours to have military service in your lifetime then I'd consider it no matter how you think others will look at you. If you work hard you and are sincere in your goals you will be fine.

Good Post.

 

[Arch Guillotti]

I'm in the ASR program. I personally don't believe it will hurt my application and in fact I think the opposite. State National Guards have a policy that requires them to be flexible with medical students and residents. If you have a weekend off and there is drill that weekend you should go. If on the other hand you are on call and cannot make it you just call and let your unit you can't. In some instances they might have you make it up while in others not. As far as deployments go, the current policy is that residents are non-deployable. They want trained physicians for the most part. I did meet a Major in the NG who volunteered to serve in Iraq during his med-peds residency. He said he had to jump through a number of hoops to get the guard to let him go. If you want to join then I'd read up on what others have to say in many of the forums. If you want to serve in the NG I don't see how a person could look at your application and say we don't like this guy. I would think more along the lines of this is a person who is willing to make sacrifices if called to do so and will do things to help the team rather than just himself. If it's a goal of yours to have military service in your lifetime then I'd consider it no matter how you think others will look at you. If you work hard you and are sincere in your goals you will be fine.

I can't comment on this post since I know nothing about the military but I will say that pgg and trin have been around here forever and uniformly offer good advice.