Army Reserve (STRAP) Surgeon Transition to Active Duty - Career Plan Question

[Cap'n]

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I have a question regarding my long-term career plans. I am a 4th year med student who has matched to a civilian general surgery residency. I have been medically cleared by MEPS and my packet is at an admin board right now for selection into Army STRAP. I want a lifetime career in the military. I chose Army STRAP because I believe that starting off in the reserve will be better for me to prevent skills atrophy (I am told that you are not as busy as a military surgeon than as a civilian surgeon). Army deployments for reserve are also shorter and more frequent, which is what I desire. My career plan is below, and I am looking for someone knowledgeable about Army surgery to evaluate it for likelihood of success. Thanks!

- Complete my civilian residency
- Fine-tune my skills during the first 5 years of my general surgery practice, particularly minimally invasive skills (I am very interested in the robot)
- Volunteer to deploy every 9-12 months (more frequent than I understand is required--this is because I desire more military experience than what is typically provided by reserve)
- After about 5 years or so, transfer from reserve to active duty. I was told that I could probably pull this off, even though I will not have paid back my full 10 years in reserve yet.
- Spend the rest of my career as active duty military, and seek after command positions

I would appreciate any feedback you might have.

 

[armytrainingsir]

I would suggest the following......

Civilian residency.

Learn how to operate your first five years out.

Get a VA job in a teaching city and civilian academic appointment. Get over your desire to deploy every 12 months, no one is gonna hire you or keep you around if you do, save the VA.

Get over you interest in robots and get interested in trauma, vascular, or critical care.

Do what it takes to develop open skills, not robot. No robots on deployment or the battlefield. I doubt you will see them in any meaningful way anytime soon. In 2019, the Role 3 doesn't have laparoscopic equipment, and that is mature 30 year old tech.
Heck, they have been promising telemedicine since the 80s and it is still just a parlor trick.

Deploy/school/train/command to your heart's content as a reservist on your timeline (as much as that can be said) and at your interest level.

 

[deleted981229]

Highly depends on your commander. My reserve CG doesn’t release anyone to active duty.

 

[notdeadyet]

How long do you want to be a Reservist? The most conservative approach would be to take STRAP for this length in time. If you want to be a Reservist for 6 years before going active duty, only take STRAP for your final 3 years of residency. This way you don’t have to worry about your command not releasing you to active duty.

You will deploy when you deploy. Likely once every few years. If you want to be active duty more frequently, join the active duty.

Even normal tempo deployment schedules will make you a bad fit for any but VA, academic or very large scale practices (such as Kaiser).

But even in those large scale practices, a deployment is felt by your colleagues. Other colleagues have to cover duties and responsibilities while you’re gone. Other folks will do more work to compensate for your being gone. They are not compensated financially (or in any other way) for doing so. When I use military leave at the VA, I try to show my appreciation for the rest of the team that works harder so that I can do my service; I get benefits (extrinsic and intrinsic) for the military duty I volunteered for but my colleagues don’t.

So don’t join a practice and then volunteer to be gone half the time. Google Blue Falcon, important Army lingo for your career. If that’s what you’re looking for, stay normal tempo reservist for however long you want to skill build (not a bad idea) and then go active and volunteer for every mission your heart desires. Or until you get married.