I am currently filling out my appointment papers for an Army spot at USUHS, and I would like to know the details of the IRR obligation. Are there a certain amount of training days required per year while on the IRR list? And have any medical officers been called off the IRR for the current Iraq war?
I am aware that the longer you stay in the military the less IRR time you serve.
Can anyone out there help me out? Thanks.
IRR is a category of reserve duty that requires no drilling and offers no stipend. It is an administrative status where your commission remains in force but you don't advance in rank or acquire "good" time toward a reserve retirement. You can go from IRR to drilling reserve provided you are physically qualified and are accepted. Under the law, you can also be involuntarily activated to active duty service from IRR, but this has not yet been done to medical doctors (others, yes.)
When you accept your commission to 0-3 at graduation, your IRR (reserve duty) "clock" starts, so to speak. From that point, you owe eight years of reserve duty which, if not spent on active duty or as a drilling reservist must be spent in the IRR. Now with USUHS, you incur a 7-year active-duty obligation. Were you not to go to residency at all in that time except for your internship, which does not count toward USUHS payback, you would owe no additional years of service in the IRR at the end of your seven years (this is true even if you were to resume residency training or otherwise extend your active service obligations.) Likewise with HPSP: if you take a 3-year scholarship, graduate, do a military internship and then 3 years as a flight surgeon or GMO then get out, you have remaining 4 years reserve service, which if not spent in another reserve duty status would be spent in the IRR.
The IRR obligation depends on 1, your commission and 2, your start of active service. It runs concurrent with all military active-duty time, whether in a residency training program or not. Conversely, it does not run while you are in a civilian training program if that is prior to starting your active time. So if you get a deferment for one or more years, you get no credit for that time.
Where the military gets sly is in delaying releasing you from the IRR. You may be eligible to be released after the eight years, but that does not mean the reserve commands will automatically do that. You have to request release and to be decommissioned. When you do that, they send you your honorable discharge certificate. Only then are you really done.
