I was reading the forums and was looking at the new osteopathic medical school Rocky Vista and noticed they had a huge military medicine contingent at their program. Larger than my medical school my class size was roughly 300 medical students at a top 10 Medical school. I did some research and noticed that their school does not accept federal stafford loans (probably a huge factor in aiding military recruitment). This is all about the money, not a desire to serve. This does not make sense why the .mil would give scholarships to a school where the students cannot get stafford loans(as well as untested). Mind boggling.
The military gets a lot of HPSP'ers from DO schools in general, for two main reasons.
1) A lot of DO schools are really really expensive.
2) During the recent pre-bonus/Iraq-in-high-gear lean years of HPSP recruiting, the average quality of HPSP'ers definitely declined as competition for the program evaporated. The program went further down the applicant list, ending with more DOs who (on average) have lower gpas/MCAT scores.
The truth is that most people who apply for and accept an HPSP slot really know very little about the program other than "pays for medical school and I serve for 4 years in return" ... there is very much a $ motivated calculation going on. And that's not wrong by default. Money matters and debt aversion is very rational.
Recruiters are rarely well-informed, and their prime objective (recruit a body) is at odds with what's best for the applicant
and the military. If the point of the selection process is to ensure a good match for the military, it seems like an informed applicant is desirable. Maybe I'm crazy.
I interviewed an Navy HPSP applicant a few hours ago. By all appearances, he's a smart and capable guy with some very impressive accomplishments. My guess is he'll do great wherever he goes, with or without HPSP money.
He didn't know what a GMO is or does, or how the GME1/GME2+ selection process works, or how HPSP/residency concurrent payback functions. Not because he's an idiot ... it's just that there's no effort to present information to the applicants, and (outside of this forum) really no place to get that information.
I was the third person to interview him, and apparently the previous two didn't see fit to ask or talk about these issues. I don't know WTF they
did ask about but it was probably useless boring "why do you want to be a doctor" crap that gets a rehearsed rote conservative answer. This really surprises me, as I think they are by FAR the top three issues that lead to hate and discontent in people who don't understand them before signing up.
I've got another interview tomorrow with an applicant whose stellar #s and CV surely opened the door to every medical school in the country. I bet that applicant won't know anything about GMOs, or "officer vs physician" issues, or what milmed has done with the retiree caseload over the last 20 years either.
My point is just that HPSP recruiting is (and always has been) a really poorly run system that does an especially terrible job educating applicants exactly what they're applying for. I don't think it's deliberate concealment of drawbacks to military service and the medical corps ... I think the recruiters are genuinely ignorant and think the only pertinent information concerns $ paid and years owed (which they bone up 9 times in 10 anyway). So we shouldn't be to surprised or too judgmental when we get a disproportionate number of applicants from really expensive schools.
Because in the end, HPSP advertising isn't at all like a Marine Corps commercial offering brotherhood and honorable service. It is deliberately marketed as a "$ for med school" program, not a "sign up to serve" program. I think that's stupid and counterproductive, but nobody ever asked for my opinion. Frankly, I'm surprised they asked me to interview people in the first place.