Army National Guard and Residency choice?

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[Gastrapathy]

I recently talked to an active duty army physician and was told that the number of positions available for competitive residencies (surgery, radiology, etc) was higher than the civilian match.

However, a fair number of physicians have spoken out against the Air Force and their low match rate.

1. Does the Army offer as good of a chance of getting that competitive specialty as the NRMP? What about the Navy? (I haven't heard much about that branch)

2. I didn't know that the pension was so much; about 50,000 for active duty physicians that work 20 years. The active duty pension starts when you retire, which could be age 42 if you had attended the military medical school. This is much better than the national guard pension that starts at age 60. This is pretty appealing considering the Bush tax cuts will expire and will probably increase in the future.

There are fewer slots and fewer applicants. The applicant pool is variable and, therefore, sometimes it can be easier or harder to get a competitive residency in the military. Its impossible to predict but, generally, its rarely to your advantage to be in the military and wanting a competitive residency.

You can retire ~45 from either HPSP or USUHS with about a 60k pension.

 

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[notdeadyet]

Thanks for the reply. I didn't know that the active duty pension was so generous,

Strongly suggest sitting down with a spreadsheet and some good data before joining the military for the pension. If you're going into a "competitive specialty," you'll find that even with the pension, the salary difference for 20 years would end up costing you a lot more than the pension you'll be earning.

the national guard/reserve pension is much worse since it starts off at age 60. Thanks again.

The NG/Reserve pension not only comes later, but it's a lot smaller. And as it should be. You're getting a pension for a lot less work. Of course, the big advantage of the Guard/Reserves is that you'll have spent a career earning a civilian salary.