Guard/Reserves during Residency following AD Flight Surgery

[River Rat]

First off, apologies if this has been asked before, no real (recent) pertinent threads popped up. I'm currently finishing up my AD commitment as a GMO, intending to separate and start civilian residency (Match Day in 10!) in the near future. If I'm honest with myself, it would be that I really enjoyed my time as a flight doc for the squadrons I was assigned to. As much as it has sucked at times, it's an experience that I will never regret and I really am thinking about staying in in some way or another, Guard or Reserves.

What are my options for staying in the military as a civilian PGY2-5, as a 4 year AF Flight Surgeon? I wouldn't be doing it for the money (GI bill will make things a little bit easier as a resident,) and my main questions are what a Reserves or Air NG contract would entail in terms of payback following residency, or how deployable I would be as a resident? Do I reach out to these units directly? When should I start this process?

Thanks!

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[DeadCactus]

I'm Army Guard. Guard/Reserve experience varies significantly by state and unit as well as your own attitude. It can be barely showing up to drill and studying in a corner to being an integral part of the unit. You are theoretically protected as a resident from deployment. It's the military so anything is possible but I don't lose any sleep worrying about being forced into a deployment.

As prior service, assuming you don't want any cash from a special program, you can likely enter with 0 to 2 years of obligation which you would pay concurrently with your service during residency. If you take an incentive program or go to a military school (Flight Surgeon), you obviously extend the obligation. The Army NG (and Reserve?) has significantly better financial incentives to my understanding thought it's hard to tell because Air Guard incentives seem to be more regional. The main options you would look into are STRAP and HPLRP.

Start the process once you match somewhere. Contacting the units directly will give you a chance to talk to their command and feel out what they would expect of you. Getting them and the state level recruiter involved will help things go as fast as possible. I would recommend looking into Army as well as Air Force just to see what all your options are.