Doing Peds in Air Force

[muffinbakinginprocess]

Hi there! I am a prospective HPSP scholar who is interested in doing Peds Ortho/ Surgery in the future. Does anyone know the number of slots AF have for Peds, specifically for these two sub-specialties? What is the average payback year for Peds? Would you recommend AF or other branches for this specialty? Thanks a bunch!

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[HighPriest]

So, to begin with, if you want to do peds Ortho or Peds surgery, you'll first do General Surgery or Orthopedic Surgery and then do a pediatrics fellowship. You can't do a pediatrics residency and then go on to become a surgery...at least not without starting over...

So, the number of peds slots is not relevant to your goals. Additionally, while I'm sure that you know exactly what you want to do and there's very little chance you'll change your mind: understand that most people change their minds regardless of how sure they are when they start medical school. So while asking these questions is a smart idea, make sure you're also asking whether HPSP or the specific branch of service is what you want regardless of your predestined specialty.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of med students change their mind on specialty. Additionally, I doubt there are many peds surgery spots in the AF. Maybe it’s different than the Navy, but we only had 2 AY-21 pre-select spots this year for peds surgery and 0 for peds ortho.

I think the advice is good that if getting a specific specialty is of utmost importance to you, the military may not be the best option unless you are planning/willing to gmo and gtfo.

 

[HighPriest]

Army had very few peds surgery spots as well. It's not easy to get. And the AF has the smallest medical corps.

 

[teacherman84]

Cant speak authrotatively on the future of peds surgery or peds ortho in the AF but if youta your goal id assume all mil is a bad choice given what the climate under DHA sounds like. I can say there were 0 fellowship spots available for both this year.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Cant speak authrotatively on the future of peds surgery or peds ortho in the AF but if youta your goal id assume all mil is a bad choice given what the climate under DHA sounds like. I can say there were 0 fellowship spots available for both this year.

Agreed. Probably safer to go civilian and then hit up reserves or contracting later.

 

[DeadCactus]

In addition to the concerns raised above, Pediatric Surgery as a subspecialty and Orthopedic Surgery as a specialty are competitive fields and pursuing them in the military is only going to be that much more competitive.

 

[muffinbakinginprocess]

Somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of med students change their mind on specialty. Additionally, I doubt there are many peds surgery spots in the AF. Maybe it’s different than the Navy, but we only had 2 AY-21 pre-select spots this year for peds surgery and 0 for peds ortho.

I think the advice is good that if getting a specific specialty is of utmost importance to you, the military may not be the best option unless you are planning/willing to gmo and gtfo.

Thank you for your advice! Do you think there might be more in Navy since they have a humanitarian ship? Also, what do you mean by pre-select spots?

 

[muffinbakinginprocess]

In addition to the concerns raised above, Pediatric Surgery as a subspecialty and Orthopedic Surgery as a specialty are competitive fields and pursuing them in the military is only going to be that much more competitive.

Are you referring to the military residencies? What you mentioned above makes perfect sense, do you know which specialties are more popular in the military?

 

[muffinbakinginprocess]

Cant speak authrotatively on the future of peds surgery or peds ortho in the AF but if youta your goal id assume all mil is a bad choice given what the climate under DHA sounds like. I can say there were 0 fellowship spots available for both this year.

What's DHA?

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Thank you for your advice! Do you think there might be more in Navy since they have a humanitarian ship? Also, what do you mean by pre-select spots?

My point is that the Navy has more gme spots than the AF and still only has 0-2 spots for these subspecialties, so I wouldn’t expect to be able to do either of them if you go HPSP, especially not without a tour first.

Pre-select (I believe—someone correct me if I’m wrong) means you get selected for the fellowship to start in 2021 (or whatever) now. So it’s only 2018 (matching for the 2019 year), so the people getting preselected for 2021 will have to work as a generalist for 2 years before starting fellowship.

 

[teacherman84]

What's DHA?

Defense health agency. Congres said were spending too much money, we have to combine our medical assets and get rid of redundancies. So soon all the medical corps wil be under one leadership. Too soon to tell what that will look like. Some of the wording sounds like they want to get out of the business of having a lot of specialties who don't care for active duty...less peds

 

[DeadCactus]

Are you referring to the military residencies? What you mentioned above makes perfect sense, do you know which specialties are more popular in the military?

Orthopaedics is a competitive field to enter overall. General surgery is moderately competitive but the pediatric surgery fellowships are insanely competitive. Unless it has changed significantly, to be a competitive fellowship applicant meant doing a 7 year general surgery residency (5 years of general surgery and 2 years of research) at a top institution. It's going to be hard to match that in the military. The military is small enough where competitiveness of any speciality can change drastically year to year. As a general trend though, you can imagine people drawn to the military have the same interests as people who tend to be drawn to EM, general surgery, and orthopaedics.

Then you have the whole issue of needing permission to do a fellowship and pediatric anything not being a particularly useful sub-specialty for the military.

The one potential advantage of the military would be if you could get a military sponsored fellowship slot (meaning the military pays your salary and benefits while you train in a civilian fellowship). Now you're free labor and have a dramatic boost to your desirability as a fellowship applicant. I wouldn't count on that though and mention it only for completeness.

The bottom line with the military is simple. It might work out but there is a good chance it won't and you have to be flexible and accept that you may have to delay what you want by half a decade and just enjoy the ride. If you are really set on a specific path and can't tolerate any delays or detours, it's not going to be a good experience.