Is GMO and out safer?

[SmallyBells]

I'm only going into my 3rd year of pre med right now, and have a great GPA but have not taken the MCAT yet. I've been doing a lot of research about HPSP and have read a lot about it on this forum, but I want to know if anyone has insight regarding if its financially safer and even safer as a career path.

Financially, it is a safer option to my current understanding. Being in debt is always a gamble, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on school that doesn't guarantee an internship, residency, or a job afterwards seems inferior to coming out of med school debt free and having an internship, regardless of the amount of freedom a civilian gets in making their decisions. Even if the end payout could be less, from what I've read serving 4 years as a GMO after your internship and getting out will not hurt your chance to apply for residency, and specializing in what you're interested in.

Am I thinking about this wrongly?

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[Gastrapathy]

Not safer for your patients

 

[Homunculus]

I'm only going into my 3rd year of pre med right now, and have a great GPA but have not taken the MCAT yet. I've been doing a lot of research about HPSP and have read a lot about it on this forum, but I want to know if anyone has insight regarding if its financially safer and even safer as a career path.

Financially, it is a safer option to my current understanding. Being in debt is always a gamble, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on school that doesn't guarantee an internship, residency, or a job afterwards seems inferior to coming out of med school debt free and having an internship, regardless of the amount of freedom a civilian gets in making their decisions. Even if the end payout could be less, from what I've read serving 4 years as a GMO after your internship and getting out will not hurt your chance to apply for residency, and specializing in what you're interested in.

Am I thinking about this wrongly?

unless you are an epic disaster of a medstudent, you will get an internship coming out of medical school. no, it's not "guaranteed" but trust me, you will. like it or not, yes, the military will take you. and if you don't like the choices, you could be a GMO for 4 years.

control of your life is what you are giving up. people have fought wars over this. the dollar value you place on this will be different than someone else. it may even be different at different times of your life or military career.

you also have an opportunity cost that is hard to determine. at a basic level it is the inability to moonlight or work outside the military without approval. on a larger level you are giving up buying into a practice, establishing yourself in the community, branching out into other business endeavors, forced pauses in your life for deployments, etc.

it's always a shade of gray. I would not use your fear of something exceedingly rare (not matching as an intern out of medschool) as a primary criteria for HPSP. debt, sure. but in my opinion FYGME matching isn't something you need to worry about.

good luck

--your friendly neighborhood currently on pause himself caveman

 

[HighPriest]

If you can't match into a civilian internship, taking a military one followed by a GMO isn't saving you, it's only delaying your inevitable failure once you're back out. Because in all likelihood you were a terrible med student, which is why you didn't get an internship. In that case, the only thing the military changes is your indebtedness, and it provides a great opportunity to become a hospital administrator.

 

[Gilakend]

I've often wondered why people didn't just do GMO and out. I understand you would make less in residency as compared to military residency, but I would be more worried about the skill atrophy everyone talks about. Especially in surgical specialists then applying for civilian jobs.

 

[psychbender]

I've often wondered why people didn't just do GMO and out. I understand you would make less in residency as compared to military residency, but I would be more worried about the skill atrophy everyone talks about. Especially in surgical specialists then applying for civilian jobs.

I know a lot of good doctors who did just that, for those exact reasons. They all managed to get spots in well known civilian residency programs, then went out to practice in their field without the military screwing them over or allowing their skills to rot away.

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[SmallyBells]

it's always a shade of gray. I would not use your fear of something exceedingly rare (not matching as an intern out of medschool) as a primary criteria for HPSP. debt, sure. but in my opinion FYGME matching isn't something you need to worry about.

I completely understand this, thank you for the input. I guess what I was trying to get at is that HPSP sounds like an incredible safety net. You get assurance of a career (if you wish to stay military) and come out of college without debt. I think that is what I find attractive about this program. Yes, I would love to serve my country in a unique way that can not be matched by any other experience. But being able to know that if all else fails, I could retire after 20 years is a huge plus in my mind.

Also, my recruiter (army) just said you cannot apply a GMO right after internship. Is this right? Is there any way to assure becoming a GMO as soon as possible?

 

[psychbender]

I completely understand this, thank you for the input. I guess what I was trying to get at is that HPSP sounds like an incredible safety net. You get assurance of a career (if you wish to stay military) and come out of college without debt. I think that is what I find attractive about this program. Yes, I would love to serve my country in a unique way that can not be matched by any other experience. But being able to know that if all else fails, I could retire after 20 years is a huge plus in my mind.

Also, my recruiter (army) just said you cannot apply a GMO right after internship. Is this right? Is there any way to assure becoming a GMO as soon as possible?

Recruiters are idiots. You can definitely choose to GMO-and-out from the get go. When the time comes, only rank TY programs, and make your intentions known.

However, this is a ****ty way to get to 20 years. First off, good luck getting promoted now beyond 04 without finishing a residency. Maybe way back in the day it was possible, if you got on an admin track early, but you can't do that anymore without maybe a branch transfer to MSC. Honestly, if you suck this hard that you're seriously considering a 20 year admin career in the Army, for when you clinical career peeters out right after a barely successful internship, you should just not go into medicine at all.

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[SmallyBells]

Recruiters are idiots. You can definitely choose to GMO-and-out from the get go. When the time comes, only rank TY programs, and make your intentions known.

However, this is a ****ty way to get to 20 years. First off, good luck getting promoted now beyond 04 without finishing a residency. Maybe way back in the day it was possible, if you got on an admin track early, but you can't do that anymore without maybe a branch transfer to MSC. Honestly, if you suck this hard that you're seriously considering a 20 year admin career in the Army, for when you clinical career peeters out right after a barely successful internship, you should just not go into medicine at all.

Theres no reason to be harsh. I think you misunderstood, or I wasn't clear enough. I am not saying I would want to be a GMO for 20 years haha. I was saying that being a GMO for 4 years, and then being able to pursue whatever civilian residency you want is very attractive. I'm still an undergrad, and am not saying I would be a failure of a doctor or a terrible med school student (I have a 4.0 gpa, work hard, and have a passion for medicine), so theres no reason to call me out and tell me not to go into medicine. All I was saying is that sometimes life doesn't pan out how you hoped it would, but HPSP>GMO>out seems like a very plausible way to ensure success without taking the risks of student loans or unknowable circumstances.

 

[psychbender]

Theres no reason to be harsh. I think you misunderstood, or I wasn't clear enough. I am not saying I would want to be a GMO for 20 years haha. I was saying that being a GMO for 4 years, and then being able to pursue whatever civilian residency you want is very attractive. I'm still an undergrad, and am not saying I would be a failure of a doctor or a terrible med school student (I have a 4.0 gpa, work hard, and have a passion for medicine), so theres no reason to call me out and tell me not to go into medicine. All I was saying is that sometimes life doesn't pan out how you hoped it would, but HPSP>GMO>out seems like a very plausible way to ensure success without taking the risks of student loans or unknowable circumstances.

That's good. We get plenty of people on this forum asking if they can take part in the military match if they fail to match at civilian programs, thinking that milmed is desperate enough to take any applicant. Also, as Homunculus and High Priest pointed out, only the worst med school grads really have to worry about not even getting an internship position in the civilian world. Your initial post made it seem as though this was a serious concern of your, implying that you are one of these marginal applicants that really shouldn't have gone into medicine in the first place. By your last post, it would seem that is incorrect, and you are a better applicant, but maybe overly anxious about the future. It really is a travesty what our system is becoming, with schools increasing class sizes to collect more money, accepting students that would have been turned away a few years ago, taking their money, and letting them barely pass along right up to graduation, knowing that they will not match into a specialty, and can never repay their tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans.

 

[SmallyBells]

That's good. We get plenty of people on this forum asking if they can take part in the military match if they fail to match at civilian programs, thinking that milmed is desperate enough to take any applicant. Also, as Homunculus and High Priest pointed out, only the worst med school grads really have to worry about not even getting an internship position in the civilian world. Your initial post made it seem as though this was a serious concern of your, implying that you are one of these marginal applicants that really shouldn't have gone into medicine in the first place. By your last post, it would seem that is incorrect, and you are a better applicant, but maybe overly anxious about the future. It really is a travesty what our system is becoming, with schools increasing class sizes to collect more money, accepting students that would have been turned away a few years ago, taking their money, and letting them barely pass along right up to graduation, knowing that they will not match into a specialty, and can never repay their tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans.

I guess maybe getting an internship isn't a concern, but building a successful career definitely is. All I am trying to say is that 200,000+ is a lot of money to gamble, no matter who you are. I'm not necessarily worried about my future, but would definitely like to be set up in the best way possible.

 

[hello1234!]

You're thinking about it wrong. Do you want to be an officer in the united states military? if yes, then cool, look at the money they give you. If no, then don't do it. If you join mainly because of money, you're probably going to have a bad time.

*** the only thing I know about the military is from reading this interesting forum and watching boot camp videos online... ...

 

[HighPriest]

would love to serve my country in a unique way that can not be matched by any other experience

Whoa! Where can I do that? After 9 years in the Army, I still don't think that ever applied to what I did. But, I'll admit that's a bit of a subjective observation.

If the goal is simply to get into a residency without any debt, then GMO and out could be a "guarantee" of success. But it really all depends upon how you view success.

If giving up five years of the prime of your life in a position that offers you very little, takes away your personal freedom, potentially puts your life at risk, and which may very well make you miserable on most days in your prime years can go hand-in-hand with success simply because you don't have a debt that you could pay off anyway without all that grief, then it's a guaranteed success.

But in order to shore up your guarantee a bit, you really do need to want to be an officer in the military above all else. If you want that, well, this is a good way to do it AND it will guarantee that you get rid of that debt before residency. If you're just "ok" with it, then you're not just trading time, you may be trading a piece of your soul for that debt. That is why people are wary of anyone who sees military service as a "guarantee" of anything aside from the chance to serve in the military.