Military funded civilian fellowships?

[DeadCactus]

It's way off in the distance for me, but I was curious about how entering a civilian fellowship under military funding works.

My understanding is that the military pays you your normal AD physician salary while in fellowship in return for a 1 for 1 pay-back. This allows you to enjoy a higher salary during fellowship and also makes it easier to get into a fellowship as you represent largely free labor to the program. Correct?

Is it something open to either civilians or reserve component officers? Or is it only open to AD physicians looking for additional training?

Is it limited to certain fellowships? Does it really significantly improve your chances at a competitive fellowships?

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[colbgw02]

Technically, the payback is 6 months for every 6 months, with a minimum of 2 years. This is really only an issue in specialties with 1-year fellowships.

I've never heard of anyone other than an active duty physician doing a sponsored fellowship.

Although I believe the Army designates X number of people for Y type of fellowship each year, both your specialty consultant and the head of Army GME hold considerable leeway over the process. Obviously, there will be year-to-year fluctuations in the needs of the Army as well.

As far as increasing your competitiveness, I can only speak to my specialty. I have found that Army physicians in my specialty still enjoy a good reputation amongst our civilian counterparts. Luckily, the majority of military MDs sent to civilian fellowships have furthered that reputation in recent years, which has opened quite a few doors.

 

[haujun]

It's way off in the distance for me, but I was curious about how entering a civilian fellowship under military funding works.

My understanding is that the military pays you your normal AD physician salary while in fellowship in return for a 1 for 1 pay-back. This allows you to enjoy a higher salary during fellowship and also makes it easier to get into a fellowship as you represent largely free labor to the program. Correct?

Is it something open to either civilians or reserve component officers? Or is it only open to AD physicians looking for additional training?

Is it limited to certain fellowships? Does it really significantly improve your chances at a competitive fellowships?

I've seen GI and Card fellows going into liver or EP/Interventional. There is a competive selection process. Selected canididates are very competitive so this play larger part (instead of free labor) to get into additional specialized fellowship training.

 

[ishii123]

Active duty are the 1st priority for military-sponsored fellowships at civilian programs. Reservists, then civilians are next in line. I would think active duty docs would take up all these fellowships opportunities since they are so limited.

Many military-sponsored fellows go to well-known and respected institutions, such as Harvard, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Mayo, UCSF, etc. If you are approved for a military-sponsored fellowship, I think it does significantly improve your chances for a competitive fellowship. When I initially applied to a competitive fellowship w/out funding, I only received 1 interview offer out of 20 applications. Once I got approved for military sponsorship, I received 8 additional interview offers and 1 acceptance offer (that did not require an interview)! In the end, I got 5 total acceptances! 👍

 

[NavyFP]

The decision for Full Time OutService (FTOS) training is typically made at the GME selection board. There are a number of factors associated with this decision.

1) Is there a need for the specialty in question? The bottom line is if there is no need, there is no possibility. Some subspecialties are not considered a need and others have enough people filling the current billets that we do not feel the need to train more. Just as an example (not real numbers) Ped Neurology - we need 4 in the Navy and currently have 5 on active duty. Not likely to approve someone else to train when we have an ample supply.

2) Is the training available in military programs? There are a several subspecialties the military has enough capacity to train in house. We use those positions before we send people out to train on active duty.

3) Do we have an available training billet? This is probably the biggest obstacle. There are roughly 1300 fully funded training billets for Navy Medicine. Roughly 1000 are for the Medical Corps. Take everyone in internship, residency, or fellowship training and add them all up. If you already have 1000 in training, you can't offer any FTOS positions. Then you have to look at the out years and decide if you can support it for the 2,3 or 4+ years of the fellowship. One year fellowships are easy, longer are more problematic for areas that might be nice to have but would be considered nonessential.

Whether it will be an option when you are ready to train is a gamble, but you just may have to wait a year or two (or three) for a spot to open.