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All Branch Topic (ABT) I want to be both a fighter pilot and a physician. What is the best way to go about this?
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deleted480308
You probably can’t be all the cool things at once, good luck
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Actually you can be. It just takes a lot of work and seizing of opportunities.
@BigRhinoGuy I am a dual designator in the Navy. I'll post a longer reply when I have some time later today.
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I agree that occasionally someone gets to be all the cool things at once (I’m thinking of the literal navy seal sniper astronaut doctor)
But most posters dreaming of that have long odds. And if anyone thinks I won’t at least apply for astronaut duty is crazy....swing for the fence baby
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The particiar combination of pilot and physician does seem to be one of the most common ways to do two cool things at once, though. We had multiple former military pilots in my medical school alone. I've never met someone who did the pilot physician program but I understand that isn't terribly competitive either. There just aren't all that many board certified physicians who want to go through a 3 year training pathway for flying jets.
Astronaut is swinging for the fences no matter how you do it, but military physician is arguably the 'easiest' path into the space program. NASA's astronaut recruiting in recent decades has has been equal parts physicians, pilots, and engineers. For pilots and engineers it's an apex job, the kind of thing that, once on your resume, let's you work anywhere you want for the rest of your life. For physicians NASA is less clearly one of the 'best' jobs, so the applicant pool is arguably less competitive. Still insanely competitive, but less so.
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If this is really what you want, I would argue for finishing undergraduate and becoming a pilot first. Go to medical school after your first tour. There is only one way to become a fighter pilot, there are many ways to become a physician. Go through the narrowest door first and then find the best path for you through the second door.
Edit:
I would also challenge the notion that being a civilian hurts your chances to be a NASA physician or astronaut. If anything, I would wager it improves your chances by removing the need to ask your current employer for permission to become an astronaut. Astronaut isn't the kind of career move you schedule into your life plan. You pursue relevant careers, excel, and apply when there are openings with the knowledge that you will just drop what you're doing and jump into the new opportunity. It's easier to drop what you're doing when you don't have a military obligation.
I will also add, you may find that becoming a physician isn't actually something you want after becoming a pilot and while working toward being an astronaut.
Edit:
I would also challenge the notion that being a civilian hurts your chances to be a NASA physician or astronaut. If anything, I would wager it improves your chances by removing the need to ask your current employer for permission to become an astronaut. Astronaut isn't the kind of career move you schedule into your life plan. You pursue relevant careers, excel, and apply when there are openings with the knowledge that you will just drop what you're doing and jump into the new opportunity. It's easier to drop what you're doing when you don't have a military obligation.
I will also add, you may find that becoming a physician isn't actually something you want after becoming a pilot and while working toward being an astronaut.
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Do your fighter piloting while you are young and with excellent vision and reflexes, if you have to. Then leave it behind and become a physician once you’re washed up or bored with it...or stay with it until retirement, whichever.
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An aviation contract precludes the ability to go to medical school for at least two or three tours.
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Sorry, misuse of the word tour on my part. I meant pursue medical school after completing the initial 6-8 year military obligation.
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More like 8-10 years after training, so a total of 10-12.
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Trying to both at once will limit the kind of physician you can be.
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I wasn’t sure if that program was still around! But great, I look forward to reading it.
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Really interested in Cooperd0g's experience.
We're probably in the last generation of manned fighter aircraft. It's been what, decades (?), since any air to air combat has taken place?
What would an air superiority fight look like vs a competent enemy like China or Russia? Not going to be classic top gun style fighter piloting, just a bunch of over the horizon missile shots. Our jet pilots these days deliver bombs to blow up stuff on the ground. Does the "fighter pilot" job really even exist any more?
We're probably in the last generation of manned fighter aircraft. It's been what, decades (?), since any air to air combat has taken place?
What would an air superiority fight look like vs a competent enemy like China or Russia? Not going to be classic top gun style fighter piloting, just a bunch of over the horizon missile shots. Our jet pilots these days deliver bombs to blow up stuff on the ground. Does the "fighter pilot" job really even exist any more?
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deleted707454
Consider pursuing a (civilian) ATP, medical degree + EM & aerospace med specialties, and a relevant PhD. I bet that formula right there could get you an astronaut candidate interview. The military working time commitment of fighter pilot is pretty long these days, and the generation of spaceflight we are approaching may have less of a demand for fighter pilots than the previous ones.
ATP: The systems management experience you'd get by flying turbines would suffice to translate towards the systems required in spaceflight.
PhD: Grants you technical and cognitive aptitude to conduct research for other non-astronauts who've created experiments for space. If in aerospace field itself, grants you applied expertise towards an aspect w/ systems.
MD/DO: Not in the shuttle era anymore, where an FS was on every launch, BUT this may come back when the developing higher capacity man-rated spacecraft projects are completed. Additionally, even if you aren't selected for astronaut candidate, it is very much within realm of reasonable possibility to get on as an FS for NASA. Its a foot in the door (or hatch I should say?)
ATP: The systems management experience you'd get by flying turbines would suffice to translate towards the systems required in spaceflight.
PhD: Grants you technical and cognitive aptitude to conduct research for other non-astronauts who've created experiments for space. If in aerospace field itself, grants you applied expertise towards an aspect w/ systems.
MD/DO: Not in the shuttle era anymore, where an FS was on every launch, BUT this may come back when the developing higher capacity man-rated spacecraft projects are completed. Additionally, even if you aren't selected for astronaut candidate, it is very much within realm of reasonable possibility to get on as an FS for NASA. Its a foot in the door (or hatch I should say?)
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deleted707454
I will also add that many schools allow you to take an additional year for research or to pursue another degree. You could begin working on your flight ratings right now. Have a CFI by the time you graduate from undergrad. Instruct part time (i.e. weekend work) while in med school, and get 1450 hours of flight time. Then take that 5th year to pursue an easy online MPH and go train/work for an airliner for a year. The industry is hurting for pilots right now.
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Go to medical school, a fly video games.
You can’t do everything. Don’t try.
You can’t do everything. Don’t try.
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@BigRhinoGuy your original post clearly demonstrates that you have done your homework and put a lot of thought into this. Way more than I did at your stage as my only goal was to be a fighter pilot. I’m sorry it took so long to write this, but it was a full day which included academics, a couple of flights and followed up by family time.
I will admit that people frequently ask me if I am going for astronaut. What you need to understand, with your ultimate goal of being an astronaut, is that as a physician pilot you would be hired as a mission specialist and not a pilot.
The reason is two fold: 1) We don’t “fly” anything in space right now and 2) Even if we did fly something, you are likely not a current test pilot type guy so you are more valuable as a doc on long space flight missions (moon base set up, Mars, etc).
The background as a fighter pilot shows NASA that you can handle intense situations that aren’t just medically related and increases your value to a mission as you can do other things too.
The status of the Air Force Pilot Physician program is more robust than they Navy Aeromedical Dual Designator (AMDD) one. They have multiple spots each year to put physicians through flight school. They are not filling those spots for a variety of reasons. The Navy has not put a physician though pilot training for over 15 years now I think. They did put an Aerospace Experimental Psychologist through recently. There is growing desire to rectify this, but desire does not equal reality.
@Gastrapathy is correct, if you want to do both at once then your options limit you to Aerospace Medicine, Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine; maybe Internal Medicine too. Coincidentally those would also be the most desirable specialties for an astronaut physician. So you kind of limit yourself in medicine with the goal of astronaut anyway.
You don’t NEED to be doing both at the same time. I’m not even sure it would help, but I don’t think it would hurt. This allows for options 1 and 2a pretty easily. But as you pointed out, you go to medical school in your mid 30s like I did, but others did as well. If you want to stay flying in the mil then it works with option 2b as well.
The problem with doing medicine first and then doing flight training is the break in medicine. The pathway is generally taking an internship only trained flight doc with one tour and putting them through flight school. But you don’t know how well they will do. Will they even make it through or attrite? Will they be good enough for the platform the program wants them to be in? There are targeted goals, usually, so if a doc doesn’t get the goal platform, they just may have wasted a couple of years where that doc could have been in residency or in another flight doc tour. It isn’t a bad concept, but it isn’t perfect. Even if you make it through training and earn your wings you are now going to do a full tour out of medicine as a pilot. By the time you finish that you are close to 7 years out of internship and about five out of practicing medicine all together. Meanwhile, you still need a residency. EM is a no go as you can’t be out of training for more than 36 months or you have to repeat internship. So this further limits your options. Again, not the end of the world, but something you need to understand. If you were to choose a specialty other than the ones I mentioned then your have essentially made yourself a hospital doc. It just won’t work; you just pretty much ended being a pilot physician. And then why did you bother with the flight training?
The problem with doing it the option 1 or 2 way, which is how I did it, is that you can’t get out of your aviation contract to go to medical school. They own you. So most guys who do this just give up the flying and go be a regular type of doc. I know orthopods, anesthesia, neurology, family, etc. Some did fly while as a flight doc, but none since residency except the family guy. The rest haven’t flown since they went to medical school. I am proof, along with my FM friend (we actually did flight school together), but you have to want to make it happen and carve out opportunities for yourself. The Air Force Pilot Physician program is trying to get it set up so pilots can go to medical school after their first tour and roll the remainder of their aviation contract into the medical service. But cleaning up prereqs and taking the MCAT while a front line aviator is going to be very hard, never mind making interviews and such during the 1.5 year long process that is medical school application.
I will say that the respective schools in Aerospace Medicine do frequently have sub specialists and surgeons on staff so that is a way to stay active with aviation, get flight doc flight time, but you won’t likely be acting as a pilot as well. You can make the jump to NASA on that path, but more as a ground doc and less likely as an astronaut.
Logistically your option 3 would be incredibly difficult. I won’t say impossible because I hate being a naysayer, but it probably is.
If you want to go to medical school first then do it via the Air Force (I’m vomiting while typing this) because their program is more robust to get docs into flight training. But my recommendation is to be a pilot first then be ready to go to medical school as soon as your contract is up. Try to be a test pilot in the military as it will probably look better for the astronaut application later and definitely would play well with the pilot physician or AMDD programs if you choose to be a doc in the military.
Being a fighter pilot is more of a young man’s game. You can do it well as you age, but you need to stay healthy and fit. The other thing to understand is that if you are doing both at the same time, you can’t be a front line fighter and a doc at the same time. The level of time necessary to do both at the proper level just isn’t there. But if you do pilot first, you can leverage your past experience as a pilot to do the dual role as a more basic instructor, adversary, specialty test, transport, and the like because they are more “simple” forms of flying compared to what a front line fighter needs to be doing and studying on a daily basis.
As for @pgg ’s comments, that is the subject of an entirely different conversation.
I do think there is value to the military with pilot physicians, but it is limited and niche. We don’t need hundreds for sure.
I will admit that people frequently ask me if I am going for astronaut. What you need to understand, with your ultimate goal of being an astronaut, is that as a physician pilot you would be hired as a mission specialist and not a pilot.
The reason is two fold: 1) We don’t “fly” anything in space right now and 2) Even if we did fly something, you are likely not a current test pilot type guy so you are more valuable as a doc on long space flight missions (moon base set up, Mars, etc).
The background as a fighter pilot shows NASA that you can handle intense situations that aren’t just medically related and increases your value to a mission as you can do other things too.
The status of the Air Force Pilot Physician program is more robust than they Navy Aeromedical Dual Designator (AMDD) one. They have multiple spots each year to put physicians through flight school. They are not filling those spots for a variety of reasons. The Navy has not put a physician though pilot training for over 15 years now I think. They did put an Aerospace Experimental Psychologist through recently. There is growing desire to rectify this, but desire does not equal reality.
@Gastrapathy is correct, if you want to do both at once then your options limit you to Aerospace Medicine, Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine; maybe Internal Medicine too. Coincidentally those would also be the most desirable specialties for an astronaut physician. So you kind of limit yourself in medicine with the goal of astronaut anyway.
You don’t NEED to be doing both at the same time. I’m not even sure it would help, but I don’t think it would hurt. This allows for options 1 and 2a pretty easily. But as you pointed out, you go to medical school in your mid 30s like I did, but others did as well. If you want to stay flying in the mil then it works with option 2b as well.
The problem with doing medicine first and then doing flight training is the break in medicine. The pathway is generally taking an internship only trained flight doc with one tour and putting them through flight school. But you don’t know how well they will do. Will they even make it through or attrite? Will they be good enough for the platform the program wants them to be in? There are targeted goals, usually, so if a doc doesn’t get the goal platform, they just may have wasted a couple of years where that doc could have been in residency or in another flight doc tour. It isn’t a bad concept, but it isn’t perfect. Even if you make it through training and earn your wings you are now going to do a full tour out of medicine as a pilot. By the time you finish that you are close to 7 years out of internship and about five out of practicing medicine all together. Meanwhile, you still need a residency. EM is a no go as you can’t be out of training for more than 36 months or you have to repeat internship. So this further limits your options. Again, not the end of the world, but something you need to understand. If you were to choose a specialty other than the ones I mentioned then your have essentially made yourself a hospital doc. It just won’t work; you just pretty much ended being a pilot physician. And then why did you bother with the flight training?
The problem with doing it the option 1 or 2 way, which is how I did it, is that you can’t get out of your aviation contract to go to medical school. They own you. So most guys who do this just give up the flying and go be a regular type of doc. I know orthopods, anesthesia, neurology, family, etc. Some did fly while as a flight doc, but none since residency except the family guy. The rest haven’t flown since they went to medical school. I am proof, along with my FM friend (we actually did flight school together), but you have to want to make it happen and carve out opportunities for yourself. The Air Force Pilot Physician program is trying to get it set up so pilots can go to medical school after their first tour and roll the remainder of their aviation contract into the medical service. But cleaning up prereqs and taking the MCAT while a front line aviator is going to be very hard, never mind making interviews and such during the 1.5 year long process that is medical school application.
I will say that the respective schools in Aerospace Medicine do frequently have sub specialists and surgeons on staff so that is a way to stay active with aviation, get flight doc flight time, but you won’t likely be acting as a pilot as well. You can make the jump to NASA on that path, but more as a ground doc and less likely as an astronaut.
Logistically your option 3 would be incredibly difficult. I won’t say impossible because I hate being a naysayer, but it probably is.
If you want to go to medical school first then do it via the Air Force (I’m vomiting while typing this) because their program is more robust to get docs into flight training. But my recommendation is to be a pilot first then be ready to go to medical school as soon as your contract is up. Try to be a test pilot in the military as it will probably look better for the astronaut application later and definitely would play well with the pilot physician or AMDD programs if you choose to be a doc in the military.
Being a fighter pilot is more of a young man’s game. You can do it well as you age, but you need to stay healthy and fit. The other thing to understand is that if you are doing both at the same time, you can’t be a front line fighter and a doc at the same time. The level of time necessary to do both at the proper level just isn’t there. But if you do pilot first, you can leverage your past experience as a pilot to do the dual role as a more basic instructor, adversary, specialty test, transport, and the like because they are more “simple” forms of flying compared to what a front line fighter needs to be doing and studying on a daily basis.
As for @pgg ’s comments, that is the subject of an entirely different conversation.
I do think there is value to the military with pilot physicians, but it is limited and niche. We don’t need hundreds for sure.
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From what experience do you make this statement? One of failure or lack of vision and ambition?
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Just because the Air Force Pilot-Physician folks want to try and make it so pilots can go to medical school after their first tour does not mean it has any hope of happening. The Air Force is very undermanned on pilots right now so they don't want to lose a single one before they have to. I would proceed as though this early out for medical school is not an option.
As for prerequisites, some medical schools will want all of your coursework to have been within a certain period of time (10 years for example) so you may have to repeat some prereqs regardless. And some schools keep adding more required courses so you may have to end up taking those as well. Basically, in your final tour as a pilot you will want to plan to have to take a few courses while applying to medical school. This presents logistical challenges as the test bases are not located in places that have universities, nor was TOPGUN for that matter.
The path for test pilot generally looks like this: pilot training, first fleet tour, apply to test pilot school during that first tour, go to test pilot school for a bit over a year (aircraft quals plus course is about 16 months), and then a tour as a test pilot. This page discusses the application process for Navy test pilot school. BUPERSINST_1500_62C, which is at the bottom of that page, is the governing document. Navy test pilot school requires a 36 month commitment after you complete the year long course. That runs concurrent with your regular aviation contract. It might add a bit of time, but likely not much more than a year or year and a half at max. It also may not add much at all. I am not familiar with USAF test pilot school and their application process or requirements.
Your reference to OPNAVINST 1542.4D is correct, but operational test and eval is not the same as regular test pilot. There are multiple phases of testing. Operation test is when something has already made it through the regular test pilots and has been deemed to be airworthy. Operational test is conducted by non-test pilot trained aviators to make sure that what the test pilots say works actually does work with fleet aviators, configurations and tactics. Just because something "works" doesn't mean it works, if that makes sense. Operational test would not be a bad back up to full test pilot school though.
It would not be hard to figure out who I am from looking at my post history here. This is one reason why I conduct myself on this forum just as I would in real life. However, I will send you a private message later with some more details.
As for prerequisites, some medical schools will want all of your coursework to have been within a certain period of time (10 years for example) so you may have to repeat some prereqs regardless. And some schools keep adding more required courses so you may have to end up taking those as well. Basically, in your final tour as a pilot you will want to plan to have to take a few courses while applying to medical school. This presents logistical challenges as the test bases are not located in places that have universities, nor was TOPGUN for that matter.
The path for test pilot generally looks like this: pilot training, first fleet tour, apply to test pilot school during that first tour, go to test pilot school for a bit over a year (aircraft quals plus course is about 16 months), and then a tour as a test pilot. This page discusses the application process for Navy test pilot school. BUPERSINST_1500_62C, which is at the bottom of that page, is the governing document. Navy test pilot school requires a 36 month commitment after you complete the year long course. That runs concurrent with your regular aviation contract. It might add a bit of time, but likely not much more than a year or year and a half at max. It also may not add much at all. I am not familiar with USAF test pilot school and their application process or requirements.
Your reference to OPNAVINST 1542.4D is correct, but operational test and eval is not the same as regular test pilot. There are multiple phases of testing. Operation test is when something has already made it through the regular test pilots and has been deemed to be airworthy. Operational test is conducted by non-test pilot trained aviators to make sure that what the test pilots say works actually does work with fleet aviators, configurations and tactics. Just because something "works" doesn't mean it works, if that makes sense. Operational test would not be a bad back up to full test pilot school though.
It would not be hard to figure out who I am from looking at my post history here. This is one reason why I conduct myself on this forum just as I would in real life. However, I will send you a private message later with some more details.
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I replied to your PM, thanks again.
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So, are you?
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