Criteria for deciding whether to join...

[Rudy]

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I just wrote this at the end of another thread, but I thought this would be useful in a thread of its own.

Many people come to this board looking for answers to the tremendously important question of whether or not to sign up for HPSP/USUHS. For most of these people, their main source of information is a (GASP!) recruiter.

So to help these folks decide, here are the three criteria that I feel may make it worth it to sign up for military medicine:

1) Significant prior service (6-10 years or so) that is creditable toward retirement.
2) A legitimate enjoyment of "hard-core" military things: ie playing Rambo in the woods, jumping out of planes, diving off of ships.
3) A strong family military heritage. Following a long line of miltary officers may be incentive for some.

If you do not fit one of these three criteria, then chances are you would be better off taking loans for med school and going the civilian route. Remember, there are many other important ways to express your patriotism and love of country beside joining the military.

 

[DCM]

If you are 22-24 and going to med school these programs are great. Get paid for med school, go do something interesting (dive, flight surgeon, marines or army battalion doc) for four years and for the rest of your life know that you did your service to your country, mature and be sure about your residency choice and enter with no debt. Do all this and be all finished while you are still relatively young, and very accomplished for your age. Same applies for USUHS, just a little longer and have to do a military residency. You can finish up twenty in the reserves if you still want to be connected but want to get settled.

I will have 7 years prior service when I start school. I joined after college for the reasons I stated above(except of course not as a doctor). It was a great experience, but now I am less likely to take the HPSP or USUHS because it is time to get settled and move on. I've accomplished a lot of those things already.