another question about military requirements HPSP and USUHS

A year of internship is required for any MD to get licensed. This is not just a USU requirement but a requirement for all physicains. In the context of USUHS, it is required that all grads apply for an internship (you can't opt out of being a doctor after they have paid you to go to medical school). Internship in general is the first year of post graduate training, many residencies have this year embedded into their program. For instance if you decide to do IM, FP, EM, Peds, OB/GYN, General Surgery etc... you enter the residency directly out of medical school and the first year of residency counts as your internship. Other specialties such as Rads, Path, Ophth to name a few require you to do an internship in medicine, surgery, transitional year, or FP, to fulfill the clinical requirements for licensure. As far as the military, the Navy requires most docs to do a tour as a GMO/flight doc/dive medicine doc. These are docs who have done an internship and got licensed and then are utilized as doctors "in the Fleet". After their GMO tour they apply to residency. Some Army and AF docs also opt to do a tour as a flight doc or GMO before attending residency but it isn't a requirement, and both the Army and AF are trying to get out of the business of emplying GMO's by using residency trained docs only...however GMO's will be used for the forseeable near future by both services because the system was set up to use them and they haven't quite tweaked the system enough to allow them to use only board certified/eligible docs yet, however their numbers are gradually declining.

Anyway, Hope this clarified things for you a bit.

 

Does anyone know if you can apply for several branches of the armed forces HPSP at the same time? I realize that the amount is the same, but can I apply both to AF and Navy to maximize my chances of getting the scholarship?

 

i'm pretty sure you can apply to more than one branch. Actually several of the soon-to-be military docs or already military docs who've i've met said that the reason they chose their branch was bc that was the scholarship that called them / offered them a scholarship first.

 

ortho surgery is one of the specialties where you have to do a seperate internship year, usually if not always the internship year is spent as a General Surgery intern. It is possible that you may have to do an internship at a different site than the Ortho residency but fairly unlikely. Almost always they will match your internship site to your residency site...it costs a lot of money to move a family, not to mention the hardship on the family. I am currently an MS II at USU. At this point (pre-med) I wouldn't get too bogged down focusing on one specialty...although most people have an idea what they think they want to specialize in prior to med school, it's really hard to say until you have actually done rotations in the various specialties. It's entirely possible that he finds out he hates ortho surgery during his third year rotations. At this point I think your time would be better spent figuring out how you as a family are going to make it through the first year...It's really hard to appreciate the strain med school can put on even the best family until you've actually been through it.

Anyway I hope I answered your question, and I wish you the all the best!

 

Time during medical school is not the problem. I had kids during medical school and it was definitely easier then than it is now as a resident. I have several friends in orthopedics surgery and they spend an average of 100-110 hours per week at the hospital. I think my wife and I would have divorced by now if I had gone into primarily a surgical speciality. She states that she gets incredibly lonely when I'm away on call.

 

That is an excellent point Andrew...Although the first two years of med school are demanding academically, and they do put a strain on the family it still remains a well structured environment. You wake up at the same time every day, have class, and study, it is a fairly mundane routine. In the first year especially you can spend a few extra hours a day studying and really cram for a few days to a week prior to a test and be ok. The second year is more work intensive and has a greater demand on your time, but still it is nothing compared to say an Ortho residency, where you are basically living at the hospital. In many ways I think this is harder on a family than being deployed. As a resident when you are at home you are probably beat down and don't feel like doing much but resting, while your family sees you at home and thinks you should be doing stuff with them...undoubtably it can and has been done, but it has got to put a huge strain on a family. At least when you are deployed you are gone and everyone understands that, and you aren't coming home beat down and grouchy. At any level of medical education, it takes a flexible and understanding family that has to sacrifice a lot of family time. Personally, I have become willing to sacrifice trying to be at the top of my class (which I doubt I could be anyway) for lower grades but a happier family. If you are trying to get into one of THE most competitive residencies such as Ortho, you probably don't have that luxury since it demands high grades. Of course everyone is different and some people can still get awesome grades with minimal studying. Frankly I expected to fit into that category when I came to med school because in undergrad I was able to breeze through with nearly all A's and not a lot of effort. Med school has been a humbling experience, but a good dose of humility isn't always a bad thing

As to your questions specifically:

The first semester was the hardest adjustment time, and yes you do learn on the job. You really can't get a feel for med school without actually experiencing it. Once you get a feel for the amount of studying that will be required to get the grades you want, you get into a routine and it isn't too bad.

As for moving around a lot, it's not that bad. In fact I can gaurantee you that you will never be moving around 2X/year! or even every 2 or three years, it's too expensive for the government to move people that often. At most you will move once every 2-3 years but that is on the high end. More likely you will move once every 3-5 years and some move even less often.

Anyway, I hope to see y'all here at USU it's a great school. And take what I say with a grain of salt. I can only speak from MY experience and point of view, it's different for everyone.

 

I wanted to elaborate on one of the things my man tman said.

The army, and I think the other branches as well, actually have two matches. There is the "internship" match and the "residency" match. You apply to your internship and then you are forced to reapply for residency. This allowed people to change after their first year. This particulary impacted those in specialties like ortho, where there is sort of a transitional internship. Gen. Surg., Ortho, transitional and folks comming off GMO tours all competed for the same slots. You could have two or three people competing for each given slot. Of course, the military gives more credit in the application process to those who did a GMO tour, thus setting up a nasty cycle forcing budding young orthopods to do a GMO tour in order to be competitive.
Fourtunately, the army has been phasing out the GMO tour, and setting up its residencies to be straight through. Ortho, had been one of the last vestages of the nasty old system. Starting in 2003 the AAOS will require that those becomming board certified have done a catagorical orthopedic internship -- no more general surg guys stealing our slots! The Army is conforming to this new rule and actually has increased (or will increase) the number of PGY2-5 slots to accomodate those who took a year(s) out for GMO.
This very issue was my "deal breaker" with HPSP. Had they not changed the rule, I wouldn't have signed on the dotted line.

Ed

 

Hi i have several questions:
Can you do HPSP for 2-3 years as opposed to 4? i.e. they pay for 2 years for college, but you owe only 2 years then? It seems financially much better for the student, if he doesnt plan to spend 20 years in the military.
About ortho residensy, if the student does the navy internship and the gmo tour, will he be competitive for the civilian pg 2 programs? Or he'd have to start from pg 1 in civil world?

How competitive would it be to get navy flight surgeon or dive medicine position out of internship? Is it possible to do 1 or 2 years of each?

p.s. im trying to see what a country can do for a man

Thanks

 

I think i was able to answer my 1 question myself here:

"There are 23 Navy internship programs with 62 transitional year positions, 43 family practice positions and 153 positions for categorical programs in Internal Medicine (60), surgery (50), pediatrics (21), OB/GYN (13), and psychiatry (11). USUHS and AFHPSP graduates do not incur any additional obligation beyond their medical school obligation, nor do they repay any obligation during this year. The only exception to this is for AFHPSP graduates who were awarded a 2-year scholarship. For these Navy medical officers, the internship year counts for one of their 3-year minimum service requirement (Active Duty obligation)."
http://nshs.med.navy.mil/gme/NAVMEDGME.htm#GME-1%20(INTERNSHIP%20YEAR)

Now, if doctors dont plan to stay in military for the 20 years (most get out after the 4 year obligation), why dont they choose the more lucrative 2 year option? You can certainly make more money in the civilian world.. And military life is fun (even if you do have family) for several years, but after that your family may divorce you!

 

ed,
If they make the final choice in internship year, then wont it be just as competitve as before? Perhaps before this took effect some guys did gen surgery or some other internship, all the while knowing they'd apply for ortho. Now they will all apply to ortho internship.
But i guess it's not the military that decides this, if the civilian ortho residensies will no longer accept gen surgery internship?