Financial incentives and commitment?!

[HoosierdaddyO]

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I've been toying with the idea of joining the air National Guard or army national guard for quite some time. I am in my last year of emergency medicine and was looking to see what financial benefits do each of these two institutions offer as far as bonuses or loan repayment for a new emergency medicine attending. I have about the average medical student loans in nearly $250,000 and while the money is not the sole reason for why I would join it definitely is an important reason as well (in addition to serving my country)... I was wondering if any recruiter a person who's been in my footsteps knows what actual financial benefits or bonuses I would receive from either of these two opportunities and what my actual yearly commitment would entail. It would be greatly appreciated for any information or advice.

 

[notdeadyet]

The Army National Guard offers $250K student loan repayment, paid out at $40K per year (though taxes eat up about$8K of this).

I have had lots of folks ask about the Air side of the Guard, but when I last looked, they had loan repayment benefits that were pegged at about $50K. You’ll have to check on this.

For the Army side, the ARNG also has a 90 day boots-on-ground policy that limits your deployments to 120 days total (with 30 days allocated to pre/post-mob activities). This is also a feature of the Army Reserve. Unless things have changed, this is not a policy for Air side.

As for drilling duties and the life, myself, DeadCactus, SB, and lots of others have posted a whole lot of materials on this. Search ARNG, “Army Reserve” “National Guard” and other relevant terms using the search function (I’d recommend using the Advanced search, limit to the Military Medicine forum, and at first try limit to thread titles). After you’ve read those, come back if you have more specific questions and myself and others will be happy to reply.