Army Student Looking for a Path

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PFCCoker

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First let me say that I am a 36 year old Male that has just recently joined the Army to help fulfill my current goal to pursue a career as a Doctor in the Army, I WILL become a Doctor (current goal pediatric Oncology) I am just looking for the most optimum route to take advantage of all of my current resources.

I am currently a 68W in the US Army doing what I can to start the process to my Pre-Med degree while being deployed. I have done what I can to find a straight answer on whether my old education (Bachelors degree in Electronic Engineering from ITT Tech in 2000) is able to be utilized to pursue my current or not to be met with yes/no whether related to how long ago or "accreditation" starus of that school from about every front I can manage to talk with. I am constantly searching (when I can) on ways to go about this path within the army through a program or by taking any class I can manage in my off time yet I find myself staring at the wall of "starting over completely" which I am very happy to do yet only if it is a necessary step.

I have talked to every PA, Doctor, and medical professional that I have interacted with yet still I have yet to form a clear picture of how I can go about this. I think about this every day when I wake up and am still thinking on how I can go about this every night as I fall asleep and I now find myself needing to seek out other expert help not within my "circle of peers". I know of USHS and of the Medical Scholarship program my question is HOW I go about reaching the point where I can take advantage of those resources.

My "current" path looks like this, do the first two years at a Community college taking the CLEP for all classes I can, then proceeding to a "Main Stream College" to finish my Pre-Med classes with the ultimate Goal of USHS. I have done all I can through my Army Education center that is required signed up at the local Commuity college only to be meet with another possible "bump in the road" in that I might as well not bother with the CLEP tests as now I am being told that "many colleges" do not accept them.

I am looking for a solid path that I can set myself upon to reach my goal yet all I seem to do is meet obstacles, at this point I am seeking any advice I can find on what exactly I can or should be doing.
 
why bother with community college to begin with? cant you use your GI bill benefits to go to a 4 year instate public college? i think med school admission prefer all pre med classes be taken at a 4 year college. during college you can also use the time to build up your EC with volunteer/shadowing activities. I would suggest get out after your as soon as possible and use the benefit for your in state university. not sure about how you can do it during deployment though
 
If you have just enlisted and you are 36 years old, you may not have the luxury of putting your education on hold until after your enlistment ends. So, take the classes you can at community college with the goal of taking the pre-requisite courses. If you have a BEE or whatever, you have a bachelor's degree which is what is required, along with the pre-reqs in order to apply. While community colleges get a bad rap, the admissions committees will see that you took the courses while employed in the military and they might cut you some slack. Basically, from what I can tell, you have a bachelor's degree and now you need to do a post-bac (informal in your case) to get the prerequisties for medical school admission that you did not take as an undergrad.

The requirements for USUHS are:
■One full year of biology with one full-year of laboratory


■The Admissions Committee will accept general biology, human anatomy, human physiology (or anatomy and physiology combined), microbiology, zoology, animal biology and cell biology.


■The Committee will not accept botany, plant biology, environmental biology, pro-karyotic biology, environmental science, ecology and geology.


■If you have taken a course which is not listed above, contact the Admissions Office via email for a personal response.


■One full year of inorganic chemistry with one full year of laboratory


■The Admissions Committee will accept general chemistry, biochemistry, physical chemistry, analytical chemistry, inorganic chemistry and introductory chemistry.


■One full year of organic chemistry with one full year of laboratory


■The Admissions Committee will accept general organic chemistry, introductory organic chemistry, structures and reactions and chemical structural analysis.


■The Committee will not accept biochemistry in place of organic chemistry. Please consult your school's course catalog to make sure that your particular course is organic.


■One full year of physics with one full year of laboratory


■The Admissions Committee will accept introductory physics, calculus-based physics, algebra-based physics and mechanics, fluids and engineering.


■The Committee will not accept meteorology, astronomy, mechanics of the heavens, etc.


■One full year of English


■The Admissions Committee will accept writing and literature courses and foreign languages.


■The Committee will not accept communications courses, public speaking or social science classes (i.e. psychology, sociology or political science).


■One semester of calculus


■The Admissions Committee will accept business calculus, survey of calculus and introductory calculus.


■The Committee will not accept pre-calculus or statistics. If your school designates a course as "analysis," please be sure to note whether it is calculus.


■**One year denotes two semesters or three quarters of study. It is advised that you note on your application whether a class includes a lab or not.


Do look at the mission of USUHS; they might not put a high priority on admitting someone who wants to do pediatric oncology as it is not a good fit iwth their mission and vision which is military medicine, disaster preparedness and military medicine readiness.


Buy yourself the MSAR. It is available through AAMC (google AAMC MSAR). It is the best ~$40 you'll spend. It will provide you with information about which schools accept CLEP, and loads of other useful information about preparing for a career in medicine and an application to medical school
 
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First let me say that I am a 36 year old Male that has just recently joined the Army to help fulfill my current goal to pursue a career as a Doctor in the Army, I WILL become a Doctor (current goal pediatric Oncology) I am just looking for the most optimum route to take advantage of all of my current resources.

I am currently a 68W in the US Army doing what I can to start the process to my Pre-Med degree while being deployed. I have done what I can to find a straight answer on whether my old education (Bachelors degree in Electronic Engineering from ITT Tech in 2000) is able to be utilized to pursue my current or not to be met with yes/no whether related to how long ago or "accreditation" starus of that school from about every front I can manage to talk with. I am constantly searching (when I can) on ways to go about this path within the army through a program or by taking any class I can manage in my off time yet I find myself staring at the wall of "starting over completely" which I am very happy to do yet only if it is a necessary step.

I have talked to every PA, Doctor, and medical professional that I have interacted with yet still I have yet to form a clear picture of how I can go about this. I think about this every day when I wake up and am still thinking on how I can go about this every night as I fall asleep and I now find myself needing to seek out other expert help not within my "circle of peers". I know of USHS and of the Medical Scholarship program my question is HOW I go about reaching the point where I can take advantage of those resources.

My "current" path looks like this, do the first two years at a Community college taking the CLEP for all classes I can, then proceeding to a "Main Stream College" to finish my Pre-Med classes with the ultimate Goal of USHS. I have done all I can through my Army Education center that is required signed up at the local Commuity college only to be meet with another possible "bump in the road" in that I might as well not bother with the CLEP tests as now I am being told that "many colleges" do not accept them.

I am looking for a solid path that I can set myself upon to reach my goal yet all I seem to do is meet obstacles, at this point I am seeking any advice I can find on what exactly I can or should be doing.

My two cents: since you are interested not only in a sub-specialty, but specifically in a peds sub-specialty, you might want to look into how easy or difficult it would be to do a peds H/O fellowship while working for the Army. If you are really set on peds h/o, it might be better to not go to USUHS/military route, but I may be wrong; check on the military med forum
 
How much longer do you have on your contract as of right now? USUHS has an age cap of 32, but like just about everything else in the military there are waivers available. But they're going to want to waive somebody who will fit into where the needs of the service take them. If you go into an interview with a "I WILL only do pediatric oncology" I think your chances of a waiver diminish significantly. Needs of the Army...

I would start taking a class or two at your CC right now. I had a buddy who took one class a semester for his 6-year enlistment and got a decent jump on things by the time he ETS'd. If all you really need to do are prereqs you could get going on them; doing some of the labs may be difficult with respect to time available though.

If you are concerned about whether or not your degree from ITT will be accepted I would write the admissions office at prospective schools a quick email and ask them. Aside from that, look at what prereqs you are delinquent in and start knocking out the ones you can during your active time. Grab an MCAT prep book and do some of it each day/week/month or whatever fits into your schedule.

Personal time is tough to work with when it comes to schools, but I've seen guys successfully do it. You can too. I wish you the best of luck.
 
This is the wrong forum...you're gonna get a bunch of pre-meds here who have no idea what they're talking about. Ask this question in the mil-med/non-trad forums if you want answers from people who have opinions based on actual experience (last few posters not included).
 
First let me say that I am a 36 year old Male that has just recently joined the Army to help fulfill my current goal to pursue a career as a Doctor in the Army, I WILL become a Doctor (current goal pediatric Oncology) I am just looking for the most optimum route to take advantage of all of my current resources.

I am currently a 68W in the US Army doing what I can to start the process to my Pre-Med degree while being deployed. I have done what I can to find a straight answer on whether my old education (Bachelors degree in Electronic Engineering from ITT Tech in 2000) is able to be utilized to pursue my current or not to be met with yes/no whether related to how long ago or "accreditation" starus of that school from about every front I can manage to talk with. I am constantly searching (when I can) on ways to go about this path within the army through a program or by taking any class I can manage in my off time yet I find myself staring at the wall of "starting over completely" which I am very happy to do yet only if it is a necessary step.

I have talked to every PA, Doctor, and medical professional that I have interacted with yet still I have yet to form a clear picture of how I can go about this. I think about this every day when I wake up and am still thinking on how I can go about this every night as I fall asleep and I now find myself needing to seek out other expert help not within my "circle of peers". I know of USHS and of the Medical Scholarship program my question is HOW I go about reaching the point where I can take advantage of those resources.

My "current" path looks like this, do the first two years at a Community college taking the CLEP for all classes I can, then proceeding to a "Main Stream College" to finish my Pre-Med classes with the ultimate Goal of USHS. I have done all I can through my Army Education center that is required signed up at the local Commuity college only to be meet with another possible "bump in the road" in that I might as well not bother with the CLEP tests as now I am being told that "many colleges" do not accept them.

I am looking for a solid path that I can set myself upon to reach my goal yet all I seem to do is meet obstacles, at this point I am seeking any advice I can find on what exactly I can or should be doing.
Sir For USUHS, I'm assuming you know you'll be serving an 11-yr commitment correct? Also, waivers are definitely granted (know a few) and it really doesn't hurt that you're in the Army (less stringent requirements vs. other branches, case in point IPAP). But the big glaring problem is that USUHS does not accept online courses, which means that depending on your ops tempo for deployment, finding any kind of time to complete your post-bacc pre reqs at a brick and mortar is going to be extremely difficult. Good news is you have options, what I would kindly suggest is perhaps looking to pursue medicine with the plan of doing HPSP or even perhaps taking a temporary leave of absence if you're AD Army. Another thing you need to know is the tendency for the military to have recent med student grads serve a couple years as a general practitioner (not sure what it's called in the Army, but it's a Flt Surgeon for AF) before even being able to complete your desired residency, which again is predicated on the needs of the military. Good luck down range sir, please PM me if you have any questions.
 
Another thing you need to know is the tendency for the military to have recent med student grads serve a couple years as a general practitioner (not sure what it's called in the Army, but it's a Flt Surgeon for AF) before even being able to complete your desired residency, which again is predicated on the needs of the military. Good luck down range sir, please PM me if you have any questions.
For the Army this almost never happens (at least that's what they told us), for Navy it's almost a certainty, I'm not sure about how common it is in the Air Force. I could be wrong but I think USUHS is 7 years of service after your residency depending on the specialty you go into. Longer residencies equate to a longer service commitment.

I wouldn't recommend online courses either, at least not for USUHS. OP is going to have to get to a school. Stateside that is not too much of a problem, just tough on the time. OP's deployments won't come as a surprise unless something tragic happens, so he should be able to plan semesters based at home.
 
For the Army this almost never happens (at least that's what they told us)...

Famous last words in the military. 😛

In all seriousness, OP: I strongly suggest pinging some folks in the MIlMed forum, as echoed above. Most Pre-meds are going to give you a load of questionable information on par with what your recruiter told you.

I'll say this: You've got options, but it's important to think long-term on this (doubly so due to internal issues with the military, like force drawdowns, deployment tempo, etc.). I'd be happy to talk to you privately if you have any questions. Otherwise, good luck, and keep your head down.
 
This is the wrong forum...you're gonna get a bunch of pre-meds here who have no idea what they're talking about. Ask this question in the mil-med/non-trad forums if you want answers from people who have opinions based on actual experience (last few posters not included).

Right now he is a pre-med. The relative merits of the various military scholarships, USUHS, age waivers, etc: none of that matters until he has an application ready for medical school, which he is several years away from having. Right now he needs to know about maximizing his GPA, the MCAT, LORs, the required premedical classes, etc. All the things that any premed needs to know.
 
I thank all of you for any information that you are offering. I realize that my age is a factor yet I can not let that stop me, I know what I want I simply need to do whatever is required of me to accomplish it. I will make sure to post this in those forums mentioned.

What I am understanding is my current goal of two-year Community two-year mainstream is NOT recommended? and that while USHS is a good choice I need to make certain to read the "Mission statement" or just go with the HPSP route?

I am willing to serve as long as needed or as I said take whatever route I need to make this happen, I would like to stay active duty while I do so yet IF I cannot then so be it
 
I thank all of you for any information that you are offering. I realize that my age is a factor yet I can not let that stop me, I know what I want I simply need to do whatever is required of me to accomplish it. I will make sure to post this in those forums mentioned.

What I am understanding is my current goal of two-year Community two-year mainstream is NOT recommended? and that while USHS is a good choice I need to make certain to read the "Mission statement" or just go with the HPSP route?

I am willing to serve as long as needed or as I said take whatever route I need to make this happen, I would like to stay active duty while I do so yet IF I cannot then so be it

You need to consider that you want the military to pay for your education but you are not interested in serving as a physician in a capacity that is needed by the military (pediatric oncology). That sort of specialized care is not (thank God) in great demand in the military. So, is a military-financed education with the required payback period really a good idea for you? Keep in mind too, that pediatric oncology is about a decade from the first day of medical school until you are practicing independently. Do you want to be a trainee, earning trainee's wages, until you are 50?

If you are locked into the military at this point due to your enlistment, you are going to need to serve out your time. If you can work on prerequisites, do so. Any additional education can only make you more marketable when you leave the service. If your only option while in service is community college, I do think that most schools will be understanding of that. Do work as hard as you can and settle for nothing less than A- in the coursework. If you can't maintain a A- average in the coursework you are going to find yourself have a much more difficult time convincing a medical school that you can hack it.


Currently, I see a lot of support for applicants with military experience (a grateful adcom thanks you) but that could change when our invovlement in military conflicts abroad ends. That you are a 68W is a good thing because it is less of a jump to medicine than coming from field artillery.
 
For the Army this almost never happens (at least that's what they told us), for Navy it's almost a certainty, I'm not sure about how common it is in the Air Force. I could be wrong but I think USUHS is 7 years of service after your residency depending on the specialty you go into. Longer residencies equate to a longer service commitment.

I wouldn't recommend online courses either, at least not for USUHS. OP is going to have to get to a school. Stateside that is not too much of a problem, just tough on the time. OP's deployments won't come as a surprise unless something tragic happens, so he should be able to plan semesters based at home.
I hope not, but the reality is like LizzyM said and what I was trying to convey with 11 years, is that the needs of the military ultimately come first. Therefore, he might have to do a few years of GP before getting in to a related field or do an entire residency in like IM or something.
 
you could do FAP or direct commissioning both of which allows you the freedom of choosing your preferred residency. direct commissioning is probably the best since you can wait until after you received all the training (residency/fellowship) to join where as FAP is during residency.

but you have to get in a civilian med school 1st
 
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You need to consider that you want the military to pay for your education but you are not interested in serving as a physician in a capacity that is needed by the military (pediatric oncology). That sort of specialized care is not (thank God) in great demand in the military. So, is a military-financed education with the required payback period really a good idea for you? Keep in mind too, that pediatric oncology is about a decade from the first day of medical school until you are practicing independently. Do you want to be a trainee, earning trainee's wages, until you are 50?

If you are locked into the military at this point due to your enlistment, you are going to need to serve out your time. If you can work on prerequisites, do so. Any additional education can only make you more marketable when you leave the service. If your only option while in service is community college, I do think that most schools will be understanding of that. Do work as hard as you can and settle for nothing less than A- in the coursework. If you can't maintain a A- average in the coursework you are going to find yourself have a much more difficult time convincing a medical school that you can hack it.


Currently, I see a lot of support for applicants with military experience (a grateful adcom thanks you) but that could change when our invovlement in military conflicts abroad ends. That you are a 68W is a good thing because it is less of a jump to medicine than coming from field artillery.

The military medical services provide care for the children of all active duty service members and as such the tertiary care centers offer the full range of pediatric sub specialists including neonatology, ID, neurology, and heme onc. The only pediatric sub specialty that the
Army doesn,t generally train is peds ER, as they barely rune Ers to begin with and they have very few peds patients passing through.

Actually pediatrics is one of the most reliable sources of serious pathology in military medicine. Active duty service members tend to be healthy coming in and they have an unfortunate habit of getting discharged if they get sick. Retired military members don't often live next to the major military hospitals and so they often get taken care of with Tricare. When I was as Bethesda, the largest military hospital, they pointed out that in between the gulf war and the Iraq war one third if the total inparient population was pediatric. Its the only floor that's reliably full.

Finally one of the advantages of the military system is that you never earn trainee wages as a resident or fellow. The least you will ever be paid is as an O3 with one year experience, which in Betheda (one army heme once fellowship site) is 80k per year, which is mostly untaxed. As a fellow with at least 3 yearsbexperienxe he would be making an after tax income on par with many working pediatricians.
 
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The military medical services provide care for the children of all active duty service members and as such the tertiary care centers offer the full range of pediatric sub specialists including neonatology, ID, neurology, and heme onc. The only pediatric sub specialty that the
Army doesn,t generally train is peds ER, as they barely rune Ers to begin with and they have very few peds patients passing through.

Actually pediatrics is one of the most reliable sources of serious pathology in military medicine. Active duty service members tend to be healthy coming in and they have an unfortunate habit of getting discharged if they get sick. Retired military members don't often live next to the major military hospitals and so they often get taken care of with Tricare. When I was as Bethesda, the largest military hospital, they pointed out that in between the gulf war and the Iraq war one third if the total inparient population was pediatric. Its the only floor that's reliably full.

Finally one of the advantages of the military system is that you never ear 'trainees wages as a resident or fellow. The least you will ever be paid is as an O3 with one year experience, which in Betheda (one army heme once fellowship site) is 80k per year, which is mostly untaxed. As a fellow with at least 3 yearsbexperienxe he would be making an after tax income on par with many working pediatricians.

In the United States in 2007, approximately 10,400 children under age 15 were diagnosed with cancer and about 1,545 children will die from the disease (1). Although this makes cancer the leading cause of death by disease among U.S. children 1 to 14 years of age, cancer is still relatively rare in this age group. On average, 1 to 2 children develop the disease each year for every 10,000 children in the United States.

1.American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts and Figures 2007. Atlanta, GA: American Cancer Society. Retrieved December 26, 2007, from http://www.cancer.org/downloads/STT/CAFF2007PWSecured.pdf .

Is there really that great a demand for pediatric oncologists in the military? If you make the assumption that there are ~1 million children of active duty military and 1-2 children per 10,000 develop cancer per year that's 100-200 new cases per year, world wide, most in the US.
 
I don't know the prevelance of cancer in the military pediatric population. I do know the prevelance is much higher than the incidence: pediatric cancers take years and year to manage and require fairly intensive care with lots of hospital day. Like the NICU you have a relatively high doctor to patient ratio because you have so many hospital days per patient, and the care is so involved. Most of all I know there definitely is an Army peds once fellowship because I rounded with then for a month.

I suspect that this recruit was told a nice story by a recruiter and he really believes that his enlistment will lead to his dream job of being a pediatric oncologist in the Army. I have my doubts.
 
You need to consider that you want the military to pay for your education but you are not interested in serving as a physician in a capacity that is needed by the military (pediatric oncology). That sort of specialized care is not (thank God) in great demand in the military. So, is a military-financed education with the required payback period really a good idea for you? Keep in mind too, that pediatric oncology is about a decade from the first day of medical school until you are practicing independently. Do you want to be a trainee, earning trainee's wages, until you are 50?

If you are locked into the military at this point due to your enlistment, you are going to need to serve out your time. If you can work on prerequisites, do so. Any additional education can only make you more marketable when you leave the service. If your only option while in service is community college, I do think that most schools will be understanding of that. Do work as hard as you can and settle for nothing less than A- in the coursework. If you can't maintain a A- average in the coursework you are going to find yourself have a much more difficult time convincing a medical school that you can hack it.


Currently, I see a lot of support for applicants with military experience (a grateful adcom thanks you) but that could change when our invovlement in military conflicts abroad ends. That you are a 68W is a good thing because it is less of a jump to medicine than coming from field artillery.

Btw, one more things about this post: when you are enlisted your only option is not a community college. The military colleges program provides a network of dozens of four year colleges with both physical and online education at almost any Conus location. The colleges involved in this network have all agreed to transfer credits from one to another, so you can begin a degree at your initial duty station and then continue to apply credits from later duty stations and their associated to colleges to your initial degree. The military will even pay for up to 6 credit hour per semester while youbarebon active duty without the service member incurring any additional obligation.

Whether the OP can actually arrange to take lab classes is a different matter, but most good NCOs and officers are very good at accommodating requests for education if it is possible.
 
Btw, one more things about this post: when you are enlisted your only option is not a community college. The military colleges program provides a network of dozens of four year colleges with both physical and online education at almost any Conus location. The colleges involved in this network have all agreed to transfer credits from one to another, so you can begin a degree at your initial duty station and then continue to apply credits from later duty stations and their associated to colleges to your initial degree. The military will even pay for up to 6 credit hour per semester while youbarebon active duty without the service member incurring any additional obligation.

Whether the OP can actually arrange to take lab classes is a different matter, but most good NCOs and officers are very good at accommodating requests for education if it is possible.
You're right, CC isn't the only option, I went to a 4-yr for my bachelor's after getting my CCAF. The orig. issue was attaining the OP's goal of going to USUHS, which doesn't allow online classes to fulfill science pre reqs. And respectfully, TA is $250 a cr/hr, with no actual semester hour credit restriction (just finished 10 credit hrs this past semester), with a $4500 limit per fiscal year. Definitely agree with you about taking lab courses being difficult tho, seriously it sucks and still sucks knocking these courses out.
 
You're right, CC isn't the only option, I went to a 4-yr for my bachelor's after getting my CCAF. The orig. issue was attaining the OP's goal of going to USUHS, which doesn't allow online classes to fulfill science pre reqs. And respectfully, TA is $250 a cr/hr, with no actual semester hour credit restriction (just finished 10 credit hrs this past semester), with a $4500 limit per fiscal year. Definitely agree with you about taking lab courses being difficult tho, seriously it sucks and still sucks knocking these courses out.

One possible option available do the op that isn't open to non medical personnel is to request assignment to a large army hospital and to request night shifts to free up his day schedule for lab classes. It would be difficult and it would suck but if the OP is determined it is certainly a possibility
 
You're too old to apply to USUHS.

My opinion- complete your obligation and then enroll in a solid/ reputable post-bac program. You should be able to apply your GI funds to help cover it. Many post-bacs have feeders into their respective med schools and you will cover the predmed requirements systematically instead of willy-nilly taking Juco classes here and there. There, you'll meet other non-trads and often they will offer advice/ insight on the MCAT. These are usually 18 months long on average- you're older/ non-trad anyway so this time investment in the grand scheme of things is not overbearing. You could start this during your service but your work will be a distraction and may affect your results/success.

You will need to be more maleable to other specialties within medicine. Health professions scholarships are readily available for primary care needs of the military which afford you to work in the military and assist you with financial support. Peds-Onc is alot of extra training and the likelhood that HPSP will readily accomodate the extra training or have a need for such a specialty is low likelihood. You dont need to commit to any one thing until years from now and you may find something you like better/ as much that better suits a military career.
 
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