I joined built on the idea of a once per quarter in-person drill during Residency. This could be bad...real bad.
Yeah, it bears repeating again for folks considering joining the military:
policy can and is frequently changed. Your contract will not be, but policy likely will.
Examples of policy that folks should remember can change:
* Flexi-Training
* 90 Day Deployments
* HPLRP (Loan Repayment)- Either the amount or whether your specialty qualifies for it
* Etc.
there is- It's also worth keeping in mind that Flexi-Training is only used with the approval of your CO. I haven't heard of any CO's not permitting it, but not everyone embraces it.
For example, where I'm at, the understanding is that I drill EVERY drill. If I have to miss one, so be it, but I have to give advance notice and make every attempt to do it. So far I have ended up missing only 1 drill in intern year (granted, I'm in a less time-intensive residency and have been able to move around days off). This requires a lot of coordination with my CO and Program Director. My residency program is pretty accommodating and tries to make allowances where it can.
Also, NotDeadYet, can you post some detailed directions on going about getting the 50 points for a good year via online training and other equivalent training than drills an AT.
You can do Army-approved online training courses (via atrrs.army.mil) and you can send in course certificates to your training NCO. You will get 1 retirement point for every 3 hours of training.
Again, these do not "make up" for missed drills, they just go towards retirement points. In other words, these courses are done in addition to your minimum of 6 drills and AT each year.
My goal until after Residency is to do the minimum drill time in person...then drill normally once I'm done.
It'll be state- and command-dependent, but going into residency looking to do "minimum drill time" probably isn't a very healthy approach. It might be better to expect to drill every month with the exception of drills you absolutely can't make due to schedule inflexibility. Most commands are going to be very accommodating with that.
It's not too hard. Even when you're doing surgery or internal medicine months, most programs give you a total of 4 days off and your program can often put two of those together to make a weekend for you to drill.
It states that for FY12-13 (oct12-oct13 I would assume??) you must drill 6 times per year. It does not specify every other month. This may be okay if you have a good unit commander. 6 times of training versus 4 times, but not you can do 4 consecutive and then two more at another time.
At least in my state, I can't imagine too many commands that would allow you to miss four months of consecutive drill. There aren't too many residencies where you literally couldn't attend drill for four months on the trot. If your program isn't willing to put two of your mandated days off together to allow you to drill, it's worth having a conversation with them, as them allowing you to attend drill is federal law.
Feel free to post more questions.