How competitive is Army OB/GYN

[Armydoctobe]

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How competitive is it to match with Army OB/GYN? Are some locations more or less competitive than others?

 

[grayce79]

Not competitive at all.

 

[StarboardMD]

Does that mean there's not much chance of civilian deferment? I know an AFer who got one last year...

 

[grayce79]

Does that mean there's not much chance of civilian deferment? I know an AFer who got one last year...

It depends on who else will be applying your year and how good of a student you are. The ARMY will want to keep the best applicants for themselves. If you want a deferment, the trick is to be slightly below average. If you are too great, the ARMY will want you. If you are awful, they won't want you to match into ob/gyn at all. If you are average or slightly below, you might end up with a civilian deferment.

AF is much, much more competitive for ob/gyn. Not sure why there is this difference. There are people every year who are unable to match at all into the specialty. Your friend who got a deferment was likely a pretty good student.

 

[StarboardMD]

On a slightly unrelated note, does anyone know where or know how I can find out where there are any REIs in the Army? I saw a mention of one at Tripler. For something like that, I'm guessing you do Army OBGYN and get civillian deferment for the fellowship? Does this require a contract extension?
Thanks!

 

[NavyFP]

On a slightly unrelated note, does anyone know where or know how I can find out where there are any REIs in the Army? I saw a mention of one at Tripler. For something like that, I'm guessing you do Army OBGYN and get civillian deferment for the fellowship? Does this require a contract extension?
Thanks!

There should be one at each of the residency programs. I knew one at Tripler and Walter Reed has a big infertility clinic. Yes, you would either do deferment for FTOS for fellowship.

 

[StarboardMD]

Ftos?

 

[NavyFP]

Ftos?

FTOS = Full Time OutService training. The military pays you active duty pay and allowances while completing training at a civilian education. Payback is year for year.

 

[grayce79]

We have REIs at SAUSHEC (San Antonio's military program). REI is extremely competitive to get into. If you got a slot, you would add on 3 additional years to your payback.

 

[StarboardMD]

Yeah, I'm not exactly holding my breath for REI, but I would like to check it out. So fellowship payback is year-for-year?

Back to the OP's question, I want to make sure I'm reading the MODS ppt right. It says that for the past several years, it has had between 25 and 50% more applicants than people who got spots, which makes it seem pretty competitive to me. Meanwhile, Gen Surg and EM, which I thought were both competitive in the Army, have had higher match likelihoods for their applicants. Am I misinterpreting or misinformed?

 

[grayce79]

Yeah, I'm not exactly holding my breath for REI, but I would like to check it out. So fellowship payback is year-for-year?

Back to the OP's question, I want to make sure I'm reading the MODS ppt right. It says that for the past several years, it has had between 25 and 50% more applicants than people who got spots, which makes it seem pretty competitive to me. Meanwhile, Gen Surg and EM, which I thought were both competitive in the Army, have had higher match likelihoods for their applicants. Am I misinterpreting or misinformed?

Yes, payback is year-for-year.

It is definitely possible that there may be more applicants than spots. The question is... how good are those applicants? To be a competitive applicant in ARMY ob/gyn, you pretty much only need to have passed your boards and not have failed any classes. To be a competitive applicant for EM, you need to have good board scores/grades, etc. Same thing for Air Force ob/gyn. So, competitiveness has to do with number of applicants per spot AND the quality of the applicants you are up against.

 

[OasisMan]

sorry to bring this up from the grave

perhaps this is a dumb question, but does one have to be in the army (or a military branch) to apply to tripler for residency?

thanks for the info

 

[colbgw02]

Yeah, pretty much. The only exception is the internal medicine program, who took some civilian residents through the VA a few years ago because I don't think they filled with military applicants. Now, I think they're trying to make it a semi-permanent thing. The only other non-Army residents there in the recent past have been Air Force docs displaced because of hurricane Katrina.

 

[chemist157]

Yeah, pretty much. The only exception is the internal medicine program, who took some civilian residents through the VA a few years ago because I don't think they filled with military applicants. Now, I think they're trying to make it a semi-permanent thing. The only other non-Army residents there in the recent past have been Air Force docs displaced because of hurricane Katrina.

That's correct. TAMC is taking 2-3 VA IM residents each year now.