The NY site is a great source of information.
Yes. There are 200 slots per year and those 200 slots filled by the spring.
For an October 1st start, your application needs to be complete before September 1st. Complete means you've finished MEPS, sworn in and been approved for the program. This can be done in as little as a few months or in as many as 8-12 months (if you have health or legal issues that require a waiver). If you just start your application packet now, you have a shot at getting done in time, but you should realistically plan on starting January 1st, spots permitting.
There are AMEDD Recruiters in every state. If no one knows one in Arizona on this thread, you can go to the Guard website and find one in your state.
For those already in ASR, if the funding goes away for our positions, we are allowed to resign our commissions.
They could close the program to new applicants or they could cancel it entirely. Hard to say which they'd do, since the Guard hasn't actually officially communicated doing either. See the post above. The rumors run from the program being scrapped to expanded. I wouldn't take
If you get in the program, you can resign if it is cancelled. It's in writing. If you go through the thread, you'll find the long PDF program description that has the language.
No, it doesn't. The Air National Guard doesn't, nor does any active branch of the U.S. Military. Only the Army National Guard has ASR and (in my admittedly biased opinion) it's far and away the best game in town for medical students interested in serving.
Again, officially right now, there is a waiting list of 50 people who are hoping for a 1 October start when the 200 slots open up. The idea of new slots opening up only when folks leave (like the 40 mentioned) is something talked about on this thread, but not mentioned anywhere in writing. Rumor.
That's a safe assumption. The ASR program was mentioned as taking 200 folks/year for three years. This upcoming fiscal year would be the third year. MDSSP is a permanent program, so I'd be shocked if anything ever happened to that. MDSSP and STRAP both recruit more doctors into the National Guard than ASR does.
But do keep in mind that if you take MDSSP plus STRAP (assuming a three year residency), you're looking at 10 years drilling in the Guard after you graduate. That's a very, very big commitment.
Best of luck. By "fitness test", you're talking height/weight requirements, right? There are no pushups or anything like that awaiting you at MEPS.
Read the post on page 33 from AliceNWndrlnd with the links to the NY site. One of them is the amedd_incentives_program_guidence that has the actual memo describing the nuts and bolts of all of the programs. MDSSP is mentioned on Page 9.
Sorry about that. Doing too many things at once. I corrected it.
It works like this: It's 2:1 commitment for MDSSP or STRAP in exchange for the monthly stipend (you owe two years for every year you take the stipend). While you are taking the stipend, you are drilling. You start payback after your stipend ends.
Well, for one thing, loan deferment goes away this year.
MDSSP doesn't make any more or less sense than STRAP. You don't need money in med school any more than in residency. If you take the loans offered, you'll have enough to live on. The only time it's not enough is if you have kids and a non-working spouse, in which case your resident salary probably isn't enough either.
Google medical resident deferment 2009 and you'll see all the links you need. It's fact and it's affecting all residents beginning with the new years starting in the next couple of weeks.
Under the old laws, the deferment was based on a debt to income ratio that went away. Now it's based on hardship alone, which is capped at about $16K/year, so residents don't qualify.
I haven't heard any mention of this being temporary. Plan for it to stick.
Google it if you're interested. I'm not a resident, so I haven't looked into it too much. But all the residents I've spoken to have talked about the $350-$380 they now need to pay back. I haven't heard anyone mention anything more than that, so I wouldn't sweat it.
This has been kicked around in a lot of forums around SDN for the past year. It works great for some, it's a money suck for others, and it has an element of risk. A few folks have calculated that if you go into a decent paying specialty after residency, you end up paying a lot more with that program than you would with a flat fee.
It's income based. If you, for example, earn $200k/year and have $200K in debt, you'll end up paying about $2,800/mo or $276K. If you make less, it's a better deal, if you make more it's a worse deal.
Doctors slid in through a loophole. It's meant to get folks to go into teaching, social work, and other career paths in which you take out large loans to get lots of education to make peanuts. Doctors weren't who they had in mind.
According to someone who posted before (I think it iatrosB), you can not take Special Pay Bonus and HPLRP at the same time. So you'd be looking at six years in the Guard post-residency. Which is cool, since when you swear in as an officer, you have to sign an 8 year contract anyway.
Sure, you're eligible for both of them. It's just a question of whether or not you can take them concurrently.
The 8 year thing is set in stone. Anyone who is commissioned agrees to serve for eight years.
All newly commissioned Guard offers spend a minimum of six years in drilling status, the other two can be IRR. I don't think they make exceptions to this, unless you're prior service and have already done six years or somesuch (I half listened to that part, because I'm not prior).
"90 days boots on sand". Meaning you're physically in Iraq, or Afghanistan, for 90 days. This does not count for pre-/post-deployment duties, which can last up to 30 more days.
Take me for example. I'll be done with my drilling duties by 2015, right about when I finish residency. If I decide to take the Special Pay Bonus, I've committed myself to three more years.
You start ticking off your 8 years when you start drilling. So if you took MDSSP as an MS III and drilled, you'd only have 6 years owed by the time you graduated. You'd also owe 4 years of drilling time from MDSSP, so you'd have to drill for 4 years and could go to IRR for 2 years.
He's right. You need to be an officer. But most of us were sworn in as officer's specifically for the ASR program. Not many were already in the Guard. Most of us joined FOR ASR.
He's wrong. Most ASR folks join off the street.
That is correct. If you take MDSSP, you must finish out your obligation before you can join ASR.
