MORE Questions About HPSP

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Cadams1

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Thanks everyone who is providing information for prospective enlistees! I think it is very important to know what you are getting into, good and bad.

I have a few things I'd like to get some more clarity on.

1.) A lot of people who are unhappy with their HPSP decisions reference skill atrophy. Can someone give some anecdotal evidence? Or really just anything to paint a picture for us. For instance, did you learn how to diagnose a knee injury as a torn ACL vs. PCL and forgot what that meant 4 years later? Learned a stitch for a surgery and forgot how to do it? I mean, what I'm wondering is if I do this and find out it sucks and then join civilian medicine, will my doctoring skills be an embarrassment or am I just looking at a re-learning period that is doable. Yea, that sentence was 1000 words long.

2.) As a follow up, are army residency completing doctors looked down upon in the civilian job market?

3.) Another big one is GMOs. Does anyone have a link to a website that has the actual stats on this for the branches? And also, if you make good board scores and have good grades, are you looking at a much better chance of not doing a GMO? I ask this because interrupting training between med school and residency sounds like a terrible idea.

4.) Yea, a doc comes out of med school as an officer. After residency, I think I'm reading that they are a fairly high ranked officer possibly. (Major?) So, I don't know really anything about the military except that I have always wanted to serve in it so excuse my ignorance... but.. it would seem to me that if I were a non-medical member of the military and a "medical" officer came along, I would think I might not respect them as much since they don't fight. Maybe this is not the case...

Thanks!

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Thanks everyone who is providing information for prospective enlistees! I think it is very important to know what you are getting into, good and bad.

I have a few things I'd like to get some more clarity on.

1.) A lot of people who are unhappy with their HPSP decisions reference skill atrophy. Can someone give some anecdotal evidence? Or really just anything to paint a picture for us. For instance, did you learn how to diagnose a knee injury as a torn ACL vs. PCL and forgot what that meant 4 years later? Learned a stitch for a surgery and forgot how to do it? I mean, what I'm wondering is if I do this and find out it sucks and then join civilian medicine, will my doctoring skills be an embarrassment or am I just looking at a re-learning period that is doable. Yea, that sentence was 1000 words long.

2.) As a follow up, are army residency completing doctors looked down upon in the civilian job market?

3.) Another big one is GMOs. Does anyone have a link to a website that has the actual stats on this for the branches? And also, if you make good board scores and have good grades, are you looking at a much better chance of not doing a GMO? I ask this because interrupting training between med school and residency sounds like a terrible idea.

4.) Yea, a doc comes out of med school as an officer. After residency, I think I'm reading that they are a fairly high ranked officer possibly. (Major?) So, I don't know really anything about the military except that I have always wanted to serve in it so excuse my ignorance... but.. it would seem to me that if I were a non-medical member of the military and a "medical" officer came along, I would think I might not respect them as much since they don't fight. Maybe this is not the case...

Thanks!

1)Edited to remove identifying information (I've been IDed twice at my job by SDN readers BTW)

2) No, I don't think most people look down on army residencies, not because they're aren't inferior (I believe they are in some ways, but not all ways), but simply because most people don't know military GME has taken a nosedive.

3) The better student you are, the less chance you have of getting screwed over in the match, but that chance never goes to zero. It really depends more on what you want to do, in what service, in what year. It varies so much year to year, looking at current stats won't help much. But in general, being an orthopod, radiologist, emergency physician, or anesthesiologist will make it much more likely that you will do a GMO tour. Joining the navy will also increase your chances in general. If you want to do Peds, Medicine, or FP, you have a reasonably good chance of not doing a GMO.

4) Who cares how much respect you get? I don't. All I care about is how often I get deployed, how much and when I'm paid, how I can be left alone re stupid admin tasks, and how I can help my patients get the care they deserve despite the system.
 
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Thanks very much for the response. It was very informative for me. I think I can overcome the skill atrophy problem with moonlighting and re-studying like you have so that is comforting. That horrible match system that everyone hates just might be what keeps me from doing HPSP. I want to be a good doctor in a field I actually WANT to work in, not a decent one in one I don't.

EDIT: I feel I should add, it's not that I don't want to be deployed, I just don't want to be deployed until after I'm fully trained. I am not considering this scholarship for the money because I know civ docs come out better after 3-4 years after residency. I am considering this because I want to serve, but if serving means I won't have a very good opportunity to become a good doctor, that's a deal breaker.
 
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I'm not sure how much of this forum/stickies you have read, but you need to be very thorough, as this is one of the most important decisions of your life.

You seem to have too many concerns that are real possibilities if you choose to go into military medicine. The worst one being a possibility of delaying your training from 2-4 yrs, not being trained in what you want, having training that is by some considered to be not the best, and not having the full ability to practice what you've been trained in, without the ability to "moonlight" depending on the whim of whomever happens to be your boss at the time.

I highly discourage you from going into milmed at this time. After you finish school, and get training of your choosing, if you still want to be a military officer, check into the milmed climate at that time, at least a decade from now.

My experience is from 6 yrs as an active duty general surgeon in the AF.
PM me if you have any questions.
 
Your questions about wanting to see the numbers are right on the money. You can go to the National Resident Match Program's website and look at the stats for the civilian match. I've never seen the military make this data available. What % of interns are going into GMO tours?
 
After you finish school, and get training of your choosing, if you still want to be a military officer, check into the milmed climate at that time, at least a decade from now.
Also, if you would like the ability to pursue the specialty of your choice, train in a civilian program, and still serve in the military, there is always the FAP program. There's a good stickie with information on the front page.
 
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