Military residency

[bwa102]

There don't seem to be any dental residents in the military forum, so I thought you guys may have some insight. In considering an HPSP scholarship, I'm curious to know what your dental school military classmates did for residency.

Were any able to receive civilian residency deferrments?
If so, for what specialties?
Have you interviewed any in your residency program?
Were any that had no prior service able to match into military residency that wasn't AEGD?

If the HPSP in reality doesn't allow the student freedom to pursue a specialty without first paying back time as a general dentist, that would be important to know. Thanks for your insight.

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[OMFSCardsFan]

There don't seem to be any dental residents in the military forum, so I thought you guys may have some insight. In considering an HPSP scholarship, I'm curious to know what your dental school military classmates did for residency.

Were any able to receive civilian residency deferrments?
If so, for what specialties?
Have you interviewed any in your residency program?
Were any that had no prior service able to match into military residency that wasn't AEGD?

If the HPSP in reality doesn't allow the student freedom to pursue a specialty without first paying back time as a general dentist, that would be important to know. Thanks for your insight.

There was a guy a year ahead of me in dental school who took the Army scholarship. He decided that he wanted to do a 6-year OMFS program, but the Army would only let him do an "Army" residency, unless he did his time of general dentistry before doing a 6-year.

 

[bwa102]

For those interested, I was able to find some air force dental 2003 residency statistics. Essentially, the air force allowed for civilian residency deferrments in:

Oral Pathology (1)
Peds (2)
Perio (2)
Prostho (2)

Also, HPSP students without prior service couldn't apply to the following military residencies:

Endo
Ortho

http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil/medical/Dental/career/hpsp/spring03_dental_newslink.htm

 

[esclavo]

For those interested, I was able to find some air force dental 2003 residency statistics. Essentially, the air force allowed for civilian residency deferrments in:

Oral Pathology (1)
Peds (2)
Perio (2)
Prostho (2)

Also, HPSP students without prior service couldn't apply to the following military residencies:

Endo
Ortho

http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil/medical/Dental/career/hpsp/spring03_dental_newslink.htm

I am a 2003 grad with an HPSP scholarship. I got right into a civilian program (OMFS). I wanted to go straight to residency but they wanted at least a year of "GPR" type experience first. Even then there was no guarantee that you'd get to apply/get in after that first year. I was lucky because they knew I wanted to do OMFS but had already ear marked all of their residency spots for guys already in the Air Force who had been general dentists/GPR residents for them. They anticipated a greater need in 2007 for OMFS than residents matriculating from their own program so they called me up and said that I could apply to civilian programs. So I did. They also made me apply to their GPR type program concurrently and had started a "OMFS internship type GPR at Keesler AFB in Mississippi". That is the one they told me to rank number one to get to try to do OMFS the next year. I matched into my first choice for OMFS and so I am on deferrment now. I think this is a year to year decision sometimes and they don't exactly make everything known to all applicants.

Also with the military you have to be careful because the guy that called me and told me that I could apply civil got transferred after I had spent $2000 on my application and had started receiving interview invitations. His replacement told me that he didn't know anything at all about me applying to civilian OMFS and that I couldn't do it-it was against the rules! After I emptied my diaper, I sent a big nasty email and it all got corrected. Then they suddenly found my file where my phone conversation giving me authorization to apply to civilian programs was noted! PHEW! Talk about stressful. GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING. The military isn't really known for being super efficient or reliable in personel issues....