Joining the Air Force in residency

[Stephanopolous]

Received an e-mail today and I was wondering if anyone has experience doing this, what the contracted time post-residency is like, how the salary compares, and overall opinions.

Thank you!

Email content:

What’s up Doc!?



Family Physician, Psychiatrist, Internal Medicine, and Emergency Medicine residents **Please read**



The U.S Air Force is now offering financial incentives to qualified residents in selected specialties (listed above). This

program allows you to complete residency training at your current hospital, PLUS receive a special annual

pay bonus. Below is an explanation of how it works, qualifications, and a list of benefits you'll receive when

participating in the Financial Assistance Program.



How it works:

With your Air Force sponsorship you'll receive over $70,000 each year of your residency, on top of your

resident salary (an annual grant of $45,000 receivable upon commission and a monthly stipend of

$2,330.78). Upon completion of your residency you will receive a 3-4 year contract as an Air Force physician (practicing your specialty on military members and their families).



Residency and fellowship Opportunities! We will not pull you out of the training you are currently receiving; we want you to remain focused on residency now so you can focus on practicing with us in the future.



Qualifications:

Be a U.S. citizen

Be currently enrolled in a residency program in the United States or Puerto Rico, in a specialty the AirForce needs (listed at top)

Must not have contracted to serve a state or other party after you graduate

Meet Air Force physical standards

Be of good moral character



Benefits include:

No malpractice insurance

Autonomy to prescribe treatments without permission from multiple HMO's

Practice Medicine how you want to practice medicine!

Patients follow through with treatment

No overhead expenditures

Begin your career in an established practice (clinic and hospital options)

Trained team already in place for you

Access to excellent colleague consultations on a daily basis

State of the art equipment in state of the art facilities

Teaching and Humanitarian/Relief Effort opportunities

Worldwide travel options

Complete other residencies or fellowships while serving (without losing pay)

Commensurate salaries with additional pay.

Comprehensive medical and dental coverage

30 days vacation with pay each year

Average 40-55 hour work week

Time to pursue outside interests and projects



And lastly, treat the best patients in the world! The U.S Military! Active, reserve, guard, retired, AND their families!



Please let me know if you’d like further info!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[deleted547339]

Received an e-mail today and I was wondering if anyone has experience doing this, what the contracted time post-residency is like, how the salary compares, and overall opinions.

Thank you!

Email content:

What’s up Doc!?



Family Physician, Psychiatrist, Internal Medicine, and Emergency Medicine residents **Please read**



The U.S Air Force is now offering financial incentives to qualified residents in selected specialties (listed above). This

program allows you to complete residency training at your current hospital, PLUS receive a special annual

pay bonus. Below is an explanation of how it works, qualifications, and a list of benefits you'll receive when

participating in the Financial Assistance Program.



How it works:

With your Air Force sponsorship you'll receive over $70,000 each year of your residency, on top of your

resident salary (an annual grant of $45,000 receivable upon commission and a monthly stipend of

$2,330.78). Upon completion of your residency you will receive a 3-4 year contract as an Air Force physician (practicing your specialty on military members and their families).



Residency and fellowship Opportunities! We will not pull you out of the training you are currently receiving; we want you to remain focused on residency now so you can focus on practicing with us in the future.



Qualifications:

Be a U.S. citizen

Be currently enrolled in a residency program in the United States or Puerto Rico, in a specialty the AirForce needs (listed at top)

Must not have contracted to serve a state or other party after you graduate

Meet Air Force physical standards

Be of good moral character



Benefits include:

No malpractice insurance

Autonomy to prescribe treatments without permission from multiple HMO's

Practice Medicine how you want to practice medicine!

Patients follow through with treatment

No overhead expenditures

Begin your career in an established practice (clinic and hospital options)

Trained team already in place for you

Access to excellent colleague consultations on a daily basis

State of the art equipment in state of the art facilities

Teaching and Humanitarian/Relief Effort opportunities

Worldwide travel options

Complete other residencies or fellowships while serving (without losing pay)

Commensurate salaries with additional pay.

Comprehensive medical and dental coverage

30 days vacation with pay each year

Average 40-55 hour work week

Time to pursue outside interests and projects



And lastly, treat the best patients in the world! The U.S Military! Active, reserve, guard, retired, AND their families!



Please let me know if you’d like further info!

You join the military because you want to be in the military, not for financial reasons.

 

[SirGecko]

There is a dedicated military medicine forum that you should check out if you are considering this. But like the guy above said financial reasons are not going to be a good reason to join.

 

[Stephanopolous]

Thank you both for the advice. I just wanted to understand more about what people's experiences have been, have the enjoyed it, any advice on that avenue. I'll check out the military medicine forum.

 

[gamerEMdoc]

Steph, I was in the Navy. I did it for financial reasons mainly, joined during med school. I also had a great experience while in the military, though in the end, financially its probably NOT that beneficial and I may have actually lost money in the end (4 years of making about 110k as opposed to at least 300k; my med school debt would have been about 150k at the time had I not joined).

If I had it all to do over again, I may still consider doing it, but I'd put off joining until after residency. The reason is, you can truly gauge the market and finances of the decision at the time you are actually looking for jobs. And you can gauge the wartime deployment tempo for EM at the time.

 

[deuist]

I would not have done it if given the chance again. Financially, I lost out on hundreds of thousands of dollars by not taking out the loans, going straight to residency, followed by a lucrative emergency medicine career. Professionally, it was a disaster and that a was unable to go to fellowship or choose the environment I worked in.

 

[DeadCactus]

There is a Military Medicine sub-forum full of robust information. That said, I'll briefly offer my thoughts because it's an excuse to procrastinate:

The military experience can be highly variable based on luck and what your goals are. There is a select handful of people doing really cool things away from their family that they couldn't do anywhere besides the military. The majority are working a mediocre job, taking care of a great patient population, for mediocre pay and occasionally due something pretty cool. Another small minority are working terrible jobs in terrible places.

Should you join for financial reasons? You could make comparable money working a week in rural America and smoking pot on your couch for the other 3 weeks of the month.

Should you join for the benefits? The majority listed in that email are the equivalent of offering the opportunity to breath oxygen for no cost. They are non-issues in the era of employed physicians and even more so in the field of emergency medicine.

Should you join for the cool opportunities? Give up one week a month of smoking pot on your couch to go skydive, fly, travel, SCUBA, mountaineer, etc and you'll have stories and a life of adventure that put the majority of military careers to shame. The majority of the military is paperwork and bureaucracy more than it is those recruiting commercials.

Should you join because you want to serve in the military, take care of those serving in the military, maybe due a few cool things while wearing the uniform, ad use some of the financial programs to justify the experience? Sure. There is no argument against that. Some people just really want to wear the uniform for one reason or another and some really, really want to be one of those handful doing the few things that are truly unique to military medicine.