FAP information?

[oldjeeps]

I know that there was a post last month asking about the FAP, but I didn't see any replies to it.

So let's try it again.

There is lots of information available (on-line and the 'medical recruiters') for HPSP, but if you want to look into FAP then the well dries up in a hurry.

Does anyone out there have any information on the FAP or know of any good sources of information on it?
Or for that matter what is everyone's opinion of FAP?

ex-mmd, do you feel that it is as bad as HPSP?

thanks for the thoughts
oldjeeps

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[DCM]

As far as I understand:

-provides about $1300/mo stipend plus $22000/yr bonus on top of your resident salary while you are in a civilian residency program
-available to residents in specialties the Navy needs(ex: Gen Surg, FP, Rads)
-active duty commitment = years in program +1 year(so if you used it all five years of surgery residency you would serve 6 years afterwards)
-years as a resident do not count as time in service(active duty nor reserve)

Benefit over HPSP is you come in as a finished product, so no GMO tour.

A family friend did this program for 4 years as a general surgery resident. After residency he served one year on a carrier and then went back to harvard for two years as an active duty doctor to train in Vascular Surgery (and added 2 years to commitment). He now is in a 6 year assignment to Portsmouth NMC and will be finished.

 

[aatrek]

As far as I understand:

-provides about $1300/mo stipend plus $22000/yr bonus on top of your resident salary while you are in a civilian residency program
-available to residents in specialties the Navy needs(ex: Gen Surg, FP, Rads)
-active duty commitment = years in program +1 year(so if you used it all five years of surgery residency you would serve 6 years afterwards)
-years as a resident do not count as time in service(active duty nor reserve)

Benefit over HPSP is you come in as a finished product, so no GMO tour.

A family friend did this program for 4 years as a general surgery resident. After residency he served one year on a carrier and then went back to harvard for two years as an active duty doctor to train in Vascular Surgery (and added 2 years to commitment). He now is in a 6 year assignment to Portsmouth NMC and will be finished.

OldJeeps!
Whats up.
Thanks for the email and sorry for the delay in response.. its certianly NOT because of my non-interest in helping, rather a crazy.. really crazy month that I happen to be going through..

Ok, FAP. Well, it prob. will take you all of 30 seconds to make a 10 page list of why NOT to go into HPSP... all you have to do is look at EVER posting on this web and you will see all the negatives. Well, FAP is basically ALL the good with NON of the "bad of HPSP" but with some +/- "bad " of its own?
What does that mean.

Ok lets start from the begining. The way FAP works is that you don't have ANY connection withthe military while in med school. Then when you are in your fourth year, and have choosen what residency you want to do, you apply for the FAP. The FAP has NOTHING what so ever to do with your residency and or where you match. So you basically go on to match in your choosen speciality just like any old civilian... NO difference what so ever.... There is only one thing to this, and that is that you can NOT apply to FAP if you choose a speciality that FAP is NOT offered in. So if you (as a fourth year) choose to do anything other than Gen Surg, Orth, Peds, IM, FP ( I think I am forgeting one?)..

Ok.. second thing to remember is that you do NOT get paid unless you are in residency. If you are in the FAP program, you go about doing your residency (remember YOUR CHOICE OF LOCATION, RESIDENCY.. BLAH BLAH.. THE MILITARY HAS NO SAY IN THIS) AND while you are in residency you get paid about 22,000 every july (pretax,.. so you get about 16,000) and then you get about 1300 (pre tax, so about 550 biweekly) for the whole year. This is, of ourse, in ADDITION to what you are being paid by your civilian residency.
So what do you have to do durning medical school and or resdiency you ask? NOTHING AT ALL>>>> the contract says that you have to do 14 days of AT, but that means that you have to fax your sheet in to the neares cammand at any random 14 days in a year and they will sign it, and then you fax it to them again at the end of the 14 days and they sign it again. So, like me and others in FAP that I know, you go about your medial shool and your residency exacly the same as any civilian without any military influence (I know that I keep repeating this, but the idea that someone lets the navy dictate thier life in what to do and what carear to have is just crazy in my book.. ) and never have to ever even go to a miltary cammand... until you are done with your residency.

Meanwhile, you do not have to be in contact with anyone. but if you do need help you contact your speciality leader, not some random desk person (as in HPSP).. So I am a general surgeon, so if I need anything what so ever I talk to a capt who knows who I am by names (since there is only so few of us ) and so the crazy paper work trail is so so much better.. its acually very effienct...

Ok.. so is it all roses.. well, Of course not.. nothing is for free..... so here it is.:
you will owe the military to work IN YOUR FIELD ( another extra bonus).. a year for each year they paid for you, plus a year. So if the pay for 3 years you owe 4, if they pay of 4 you will owe 5 and so on. But the important thing is that you are working IN YOUR FIELD, AND THEIR IS NO SUCH THING AS GMO TOURS... you will never ever been sent on a GMO tour.. and you will never ever be pulledout of your residency ( never has happend, and according to three capts in the higher GME levels, it has never ever been even considered or discussed.. even in a time like we are now, where their is a major shortage).

But where would you work you say.. ?
Well it depends on what you are in.. what speiality that is. Meaning, by contract, the military will never put you in a place where you will not be practicing your trade. no of course, you can end up in a place where it is very very slow, like us surgeons may have to do a aircraft carear deployment. If that happens, your speicality leader always makes sure that it is for ~6-9 months only. The reason is to keep up your skills .. remember, they need you to stay sharp in your field.. cause you are more vulable then the hundereds of sorry GMO guys (sorry guys) that they don't give a Sh__ about thier skills since they still have training to go under, you are done.. and ready to work..

So do you have a choice in where you end up. Usually the choices are the major hospitals. Of course you will be deployed for up to 6 months about once ever 3-4 years (depending on if bush is war crazy at that time or not) but for the most part you spend your time in one of the hospitals either in the US or aborad. Do you have a choice, yes.. in fact as I said you are in touch with your spcialty leader and you tell him/her what you want and they look at what is needed and your seniority and you go from there. But just remeber that even in the WORST case siniorio.. you are still doing what you want (speicialty wise)(unlike HPSP), and you are still working in a hospital (except for th occ. deployement, when it happens)(unlike HPSP)..
So like for me, I submitted my wish list last month, and got a call last week telling me that I have a choice to go to my 2nd, 3rd or 5th place on my list and that it is my choice.. so Its not bad at all...

There is loads more things we can talk about.. but I have been up all night opening chests and bellys.. chicago can be crazy.. it was -3 degrees yesterday and we still managed to get 7 gun shots.. I don't even know how bullets fly in that kinds of temps.. so I will sign off for now with an apology to my bad bad spelling.. I am just to sleepy to care..
but please ask any questions that you may have.. I might sound like am to biased.. but I am really not.. and will always give you the very honest opinion...

good luck..
A

 

[aatrek]

I know that there was a post last month asking about the FAP, but I didn't see any replies to it.

So let's try it again.

There is lots of information available (on-line and the 'medical recruiters') for HPSP, but if you want to look into FAP then the well dries up in a hurry.

Does anyone out there have any information on the FAP or know of any good sources of information on it?
Or for that matter what is everyone's opinion of FAP?

ex-mmd, do you feel that it is as bad as HPSP?

thanks for the thoughts
oldjeeps

Ok.. there is to much info to just remeber at once but I noticed I did not mention about the applying for FAP and also fellowships? both impotant topics?

First applying?
As I said, you do not get into fap until you are in residency, but you can apply in your last year of medical school and thus spend your whole time in fap, or you can apply once you have started residency and thus only spend part of your resideny in fap. How about if you apply and you are in it and then in the middle of residency you decide that you do not want to continue? can you stop? the answer is YES.. you can switch from FAP to NADDS and thus get NO money for the rest of you training, still get to fiinish your training and owe the military only for the years they paid for you.
How about getting into FAP? easy? hard?
depends which speciality? thus it depends on the need? So it is easier to apply and get into HSPS in some cases, but FAP is easier in others. For example, when I applied to gen surg they only took 4 FAP in gen surg that year? but this year they are starving for them? cause of the shortage anticipated in 5 years.. so no good answer their. But one thing, you have to go and get interviewed in bethesda and they review your undergrad and medical work. As far as I know you can even go to a non-US medical school? they don't care, what they care about is which residency you are going to (which one did you get accepted in ), and that has to be a US accreidited residency...

How about fellowships after residency?
This gets tricky. but basically the chance of you being able to extend your defferement and go directly from residency to fellowship is the chance that Bush is not a war hungry _____, meaning it will NOT happen. So accept that you will go directly from your residency to working in the military, in your speciality, for at least a year or two year billet. Then , and only then, do you have a good chance of being released to go to a fellowhip (anywhere you want). Now, of coure the fellowship has to be somthing that the military needs. For example, I can NOT apply for transplant surgery.. cause there is no military hospital that offeres trasplants.. But over all, geting accepted to go to fellowhips is not the hardest, as long as your fellowship is offered in the miliarty. And remember that the worst case seniorio is that you continue working your field until you finish your obligation and then go to fellowship (meaning if you choice of fellowship is just one that will not be needed by the military)..

hope this helps.
A..

ask anything..

 

[militarymd]

If one is intent on going into the military to be a specific kind of doctor, then FAP is an excellent program.

AAtrek, keep us updated on how things are going after you become active. I would really like to hear your experiences.

I know of a number of GS who came in via the FAP.

 

[oldjeeps]

X-mmd,

What if one is thinking of the FAP as a way to postpone making a decision about making the commitment to go military (can’t say that I have decided yet what type of doc I want to be)?

You stated that you worked with a number of GS that came in via the FAP, what was your read on their feelings toward the program?

oldjeeps, MS1
WSU - SOM

If one is intent on going into the military to be a specific kind of doctor, then FAP is an excellent program.

AAtrek, keep us updated on how things are going after you become active. I would really like to hear your experiences.

I know of a number of GS who came in via the FAP.

 

[oldjeeps]

So, would it be correct to say that by going FAP you have more control of the direction that your career is going to go (vs. the HPSPers)?

Anybody have any idea as to how many people are accepted into the FAP in any given year?
I think I asked that question of a HPSP recruiter once and got a rather evasive answer.

 

[militarymd]

X-mmd,

What if one is thinking of the FAP as a way to postpone making a decision about making the commitment to go military (can’t say that I have decided yet what type of doc I want to be)?

You stated that you worked with a number of GS that came in via the FAP, what was your read on their feelings toward the program?

oldjeeps, MS1
WSU - SOM

The program allows you to come in as the kind of physician you want to be....however, you do have to serve in the military....and everyone knows what my colleagues and myself think....so I won't reiterate what I have posted already and get FLAMED.

 

[aatrek]

So, would it be correct to say that by going FAP you have more control of the direction that your career is going to go (vs. the HPSPers)?

Anybody have any idea as to how many people are accepted into the FAP in any given year?
I think I asked that question of a HPSP recruiter once and got a rather evasive answer.

Old jeeps..

One of the major advantages of FAP is that the career you choose is yours and your decision alone...
You don't need to know what kind of doctor you wanna be now.. in fact you don't need to know what kind of MD you wanna be any sooner than any of your collegues in med school.. yOu all have to make that choice sometime in the end of your 3 rd year.. and then start applying to residencies....
Its only when you get accepted to residency (mar of your 4 year) that you become eligiable to apply to FAP... prior to then you can not even apply...
So just because FAP is in the back of your mind does not mean that you ahve to make any career decisions any earliers...

Further more.. remember that you don't have to apply to FAP prior to going to residency...
if you which.. finsih med school, go to residency and then if you find that you are not making enough or for any reason you choose that you want to apply for the FAP then, you can do it then.. you will just not be funded for that first year and you will have have one year less comitment..

About working for the military. Just remember that there are some neg/post like everything in life.. But when you listen to negatives, just listen carefully. cause many of those don't even apply to you (like GMO stuff.. ) , but some well..

About how many FAP positions will be avialble.. ? you can find that out very easliy.. one phone call.. really.. The problem is that first you don't even know what speciality you want? once you choose that.. then you will have to choose the branch of the military (which is easy , cause with a little reseach you can find which of the branches has the best locations and facilities for your speciality) and then you make a call to that branch's specialty leader and you will know everything you ever wanted to know!
so its not some kind of an engyma.. like everyone makes it out to be.. FAP is a small club.. and you deal directly with the heads.. and so it is very easy to get info... but (like the civilian world) you have to make your decision on what you wanna be first.. and that is too early for that. (no first year MD can make a well informed decision like that.. they are usually all based on emotions at this piont.. , and I don't mean that in any negative way.. I did not choose surgery until my third year).

But don't worry.. you don't have to make any decisions now anyway.. neither for your civilian residency nor for FAP.. just finish your med school and after you ahve applied to your resdiency of choice then find out the branch of choice in the militay and go from there..

hope this helps.

a

 

[GMO_52]

The program allows you to come in as the kind of physician you want to be....however, you do have to serve in the military....and everyone knows what my colleagues and myself think....so I won't reiterate what I have posted already and get FLAMED.

I can't recall anyone ever objecting to any of your posts in the past.

Seriously, the only downside to FAP is that time in residency doesn't count towards retirement. This basically ensures that you won't do 20. Of couse, most of the specialties that are trained this way are compensated well in the civilian world and don't lend themselves to staying career.

 

[aatrek]

I can't recall anyone ever objecting to any of your posts in the past.

Seriously, the only downside to FAP is that time in residency doesn't count towards retirement. This basically ensures that you won't do 20. Of couse, most of the specialties that are trained this way are compensated well in the civilian world and don't lend themselves to staying career.

Interesting point GMO 52. that I did not know. I guess I never expected to do the full 20 so I never checked on that..
Have a good day.
a.