Doctors forced to switch branches or work out of the military?

[Coretana]

Sorry if this has been asked, but I have not found anything addressing this question. My friend is in the coast guard and claims he has heard from numerous sources that the government can make a military doctor switch branches, even if they had picked a specific branch of the military when they had first joined.

To clarify further: apparently my friend heard that a doctor who goes through HPSP from the first year of medical school may be sent to be an army doc, even though he/she may have started as a navy doc. Apparently this is solely based on where the government sees the need for more docs. I was also told that if you join the military through HPSP, you may even be sent to work at a prison, or any other government establishment that employs a doctor (can't think of any...the forest service? lol), to be the resident physician.

I would be very glad to hear that this is false, but my friend has insisted that it is not, citing his conversations with a coast guard doctor who has "switched" branches multiple times...and this sounds doubly weird since coast guard is under a different department than the other branches of the military.

If I do HPSP, I want to be sure that I will stay in the Navy (hopefully they want me!), and not be shuffled off to treat prison inmates instead of military personnel. Can someone clear this up for me and/or post a link that does so?

Thanks a million😀

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[SirGecko]

Sorry if this has been asked, but I have not found anything addressing this question. My friend is in the coast guard and claims he has heard from numerous sources that the government can make a military doctor switch branches, even if they had picked a specific branch of the military when they had first joined.

To clarify further: apparently my friend heard that a doctor who goes through HPSP from the first year of medical school may be sent to be an army doc, even though he/she may have started as a navy doc. Apparently this is solely based on where the government sees the need for more docs. I was also told that if you join the military through HPSP, you may even be sent to work at a prison, or any other government establishment that employs a doctor (can't think of any...the forest service? lol), to be the resident physician.

I would be very glad to hear that this is false, but my friend has insisted that it is not, citing his conversations with a coast guard doctor who has "switched" branches multiple times...and this sounds doubly weird since coast guard is under a different department than the other branches of the military.

If I do HPSP, I want to be sure that I will stay in the Navy (hopefully they want me!), and not be shuffled off to treat prison inmates instead of military personnel. Can someone clear this up for me and/or post a link that does so?

Thanks a million😀

Your friend is confused. The "coast guard" doctor he talked to isn't in the coast gaurd, he just works with the coast guard. That doctor is in the public health service. They provide doctors for other uniformed services that don't have a medical corps. (like the coast guard which is why your friend was confused, they use the navy's uniforms most of the time but if they are with the coast guard they use coast guard uniforms) They can also be detailed to provide medical care for under-served areas or for other parts of the government. (including prisons)

So in short: no they don't switch people between services. (though I'm sure they could if they really wanted to) If you join the navy then the navy is paying for your school and the navy is going to get their time out of you. If they need you to go help the army they send you as a navy doctor to help the army, they don't switch your service.

I hope that clears it up for you!

 

[Coretana]

Oh! That makes more sense, thank you for clearing that up. I had started to rethink my decision to join before this post! Hopefully I'll be applying next year!

Oh and thank you for the speedy reply!

 

[colbgw02]

These prisons of which you speak - are they figurative or literal?

 

[TheGoose]

If I do HPSP, I want to be sure that I will stay in the Navy (hopefully they want me!), and not be shuffled off to treat prison inmates instead of military personnel.

ever heard of Guantanamo Bay?

 

[turtle441]

To clarify some earlier comments a little further,
I'm a prior HPSP recipient, graduated a military residency and now on my first utilization tour. I've never heard of a branch forcing you to switch branches. As a general rule, all 3 branches are competing for the same pool of potential medical students, so they don't like letting you go to a different branch without a good reason. With that said, I do know a few folks who have requested branch transfers. Generally, this is pretty difficult, and you need good justification. (i.e. a spouse in a different service) To be perfectly honest though, everyone who I've seen do this has been in USUHS, not HPSP. (Not to say it's not possible, I just haven't seen it.)
I don't know what the Coastie was trying to explain to you, but sounds like he got you pretty messed up. As mentioned above, the Coast Guard docs are really detailed from the Public Health service. I do know a number of people who have voluntarily switched from a branch of the service to the PHS/Coast Guard. Generally, this happens after their commitment is up though and they feel like sticking with something with a uniform, just without the deployment risk. At a recent conference with members from all 3 services + the Coast Guard/PHS, I met a number of great guys who had taken that route.
As to the "prison care", you never know what you might end up doing. Obviously, the odds of being one of the docs stuck at Guantanamo is pretty slim. But, a fair number of folks have had to deal with some detainee healthcare when deployed overseas. Not necessarily the most rewarding practice you'll ever have, but it's necessary and you get alot of support.

 

[turtle441]

Sorry,
Didn't read your entire post before replying. You mentioned civilian residencies. This varies from service to service and from year to year. Different services have different needs for docs and different capacities for how many residents they can take per year. Sometimes, depending on what a year looks like, if there's too many qualified applicants in a given specialty and their overall pool of new interns is fairly large, they'll allow the overflow to be "deferred" to a civilian residency, and then they come on full-time active duty once residency is done. This is most common in the Air Force (i.e. happens every year there). The Army did it for Family Practice once about 4 years ago, but didn't defer anybody for the last 2 years. It's my understanding that it doesn't happen much in the Navy either, but you'd have to ask someone in the Navy to confirm that.
Some of the other "civilian" or other joint service residencies you may have heard of might be confusing the picture too. There are a number of joint military/civilian residencies in existance (Family Medicine at Scott AFB and Internal Medicine at William Beaumont AMC pop to mind, although I'm sure there's many others) Plus, with there are some programs that have special agreements, either permanent or temporary, to place residents from one service into residency slots in another. For instance, I trained at Eisenhower Army Medical Center in Augusta, GA. There was an Air Force internist who got dropped into a residency slot there after Katrina demolished her hospital. Likewise, there's 3 Air Force slots per year in the Army Family Medicine residency at Dewitte ACH at Ft. Belvoir, VA. When you're in one of those slots, you are still serving in your original service. i.e. despite the fact that both of the above examples involve an Airman at an Army hospital, they wore their Air Force uniforms every day, would match into Air Force fellowships if they so desired, went on to serve tours of duty with the Air Force, etc.

Hope that doesn't muddy the water too much.

 

[IgD]

I have a slightly different take. What has been happening is that AF and Navy physicians are being deployed to support the Army as individual augmentees. Sometimes these tours can last 12 months or more. It seems like your service is changing but the reality is you are on loan.

 

[Coretana]

These prisons of which you speak - are they figurative or literal?

Lol. I meant literal prisons, complete with iron bars and scary inmates 😛

 

[Coretana]

ever heard of Guantanamo Bay?

Indeed, good point. I'm thinking that's an exception though, not a likelihood. 🙄

 

[Coretana]

To clarify some earlier comments a little further,
I'm a prior HPSP recipient, graduated a military residency and now on my first utilization tour. I've never heard of a branch forcing you to switch branches. As a general rule, all 3 branches are competing for the same pool of potential medical students, so they don't like letting you go to a different branch without a good reason. With that said, I do know a few folks who have requested branch transfers. Generally, this is pretty difficult, and you need good justification. (i.e. a spouse in a different service) To be perfectly honest though, everyone who I've seen do this has been in USUHS, not HPSP. (Not to say it's not possible, I just haven't seen it.)

Glad to hear you say this, it's what I thought initially until my coastie friend confused me. 😛 It didn't make sense that any branch would want to GIVE UP doctors, since I had thought health professionals who want to join were hard to come by but very sought after.

 

[SirGecko]

With that said, I do know a few folks who have requested branch transfers. Generally, this is pretty difficult, and you need good justification. (i.e. a spouse in a different service) To be perfectly honest though, everyone who I've seen do this has been in USUHS, not HPSP. (Not to say it's not possible, I just haven't seen it.)

And apparently it is getting more difficult. They were just talking to us about this at USUHS orientation today. They used to be pretty easy on people switching services if they had a spouse in the other service but that was because they assumed it would all even out in the end. It didn't. (more people switching into the Army than the Navy and Air Force) Now they are making it a bit more difficult.

 

[Apollyon]

The military has prisons, like at Ft. Leavenworth, Ft. Knox, the USMC brig at Quantico, and the Navy brig in Charleston, among many others. These prisoners need medical care, too.

 

[NavyFP]

And apparently it is getting more difficult. They were just talking to us about this at USUHS orientation today. They used to be pretty easy on people switching services if they had a spouse in the other service but that was because they assumed it would all even out in the end. It didn't. (more people switching into the Army than the Navy and Air Force) Now they are making it a bit more difficult.

I know the Navy has been actively fighting all interservice transfers at USUHS.