Military Match Question

[VAPman]

I talked to an army recruiter recently about the HPSP program. I've done a lot of research on the programs for awhile, but I was taken by surprise by something he had to say about the military match because I was not aware of it.

Anyway, he said for example, that you are interested in emergency medicine. So, for the army match you must list the three army emergency medicine residencies as your top 3 choices. For the last two, you list anything else.

He then mentioned that there is an extra box where you put the specialty you prefer. So, for this example, you'd write emergency medicine.

He said that then if you don't match into the army emergency medicine residencies but do match into a civilian emergency medicine residency, you will 100% guaranteed receive a civilian deferment for that residency regardless of if you match into the fourth or fifth(non-ER) military residencies.

Anyway, I would appreciate it if anyone could clarify or validate that claim. I had always thought/been told that the military can force you into residencies and that they would not always guarantee civilian residency deferments.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

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[GeoLeoX]

Let's just say that his claim, though it may be accurate, is misleading. The problem with his statement is that the order of events is incorrect. There are MULTIPLE threads on this topic where a lot of good information has been disseminated, search through the older threads to find it.

You do put your choices and your Specialty Goal. You may have to put some other programs if there are not 5 programs in the Army in your specialty. I cannot verify that if you do not match into your specialty choice (in your case, one of the three EM programs) that you do not have to take your 4th or 5th choice. Here's where his info is a bit misleading. The Army match and the NRMP are not concurrent matches. The Army match occurs in mid-Dec., the national match is later in mid-March of the following year. The way it works is that you get the deferment if you do not match in the Army match and the Army needs more physicians in the field than they can train in their programs. THEN you can choose to interview with civilian programs and enter the national match. As a matter of fact you are encouraged to apply to civilian programs and you are required to apply for the national match.

I hope this sheds a little light. I encourage you to look up the old threads for more info.

GeoLeoX