National Guard Committment in Residency

hi,

as someone who has considered the guard I was just wondering is this difficult to do while in medschool.

 

hi,

thanks for responding, i've thought about the guard myself but am afraid i'd be sent into active duty or something forcing my postponing of my college. I wonder if someone was in med school or dental would be able to get out of this kind of situation if it ever happened? Questions that I should bring up with a local recruiter I guess. If you care to respond what were the medical school reactions to you being in the national guard?

 

I do not believe you will be able to do orthopedic surgery and your commitment to the coast guard. Pathology, Radiology and EM will probably be your best bets. However you will still have difficulties. EM requires you to do other rotations other than just be in the EM. If EM residency was just EM (work 5-6 12 hour shifts/wk) rotation you could definitely get away with it and this would be your ideal situation, but this is not reality. Radiology: Depending on how cush your program and how flexible your program director will be to this arrangement, you may (definite uncertainty) be able to keep your commitment. Keep in mind that this may mean working many more weekends while other people cover you.

All in all residency is very tough and I doubt you will be able to keep that commitment. Perhaps, pathology would let you do it. I do not know. The Great Pumkin should be able to tell us.

 

hi,

it is really something i've only just begun to think about, i'm a second year undergrad, i guess I didn't even know one had much of a choice as to what occupation they pursue in the guard, if there is a choice something medical related would be neat as i'm going to try and get emt training myself anyway soon. I live in a rural mn area and i can't imagine i would be able to pick and choose much regarding occupation. I'll have to admit a large enticement is the financial end as I think there pretty generous, but If they would let me do something medially related or patient care related it'd be neat to kill two birds with one stone, maybe the army reserve would be better though. I just think i'd always be worried about being activated or something like. I wonder if a class would somehow keep a spot open if one had to suddenly pull out for activation?

 

Hello deringer,

Doing an orthopedic surgery residency and playing an active role in the National Guard would be quite difficult, alomst impossible. I'm currently a MS4 hoping to match in ORTHO, and I have done three SUB-I's in the field. From what I've seen, It is highly unlikely to do both. However, every residency program allows 3-4 weeks of vacation time per year. You could probably negotiate using your vacation days as time for the National Guard. However, 3-5 days per week is stretching it.

Good Luck.

 

I don't know specifically about residency and obligation, but for most jobs, it is illegal not to permit employees to do their guard/reserve duty. Generally, they can't require you to use your vacation for it either. There may be a special rule for medical residents, but it seems unlikely.

The other thing is that if you do do your duty and its requires special scheduling, you fellow residents may not appreciate it much.

Ed

 

Although what edmadison said about it being illegal to keep people from fulfilling their reserve or national guard duties, remember that there is nothing illegal about a program not ranking a certain person high. You will never know why you were ranked high enough to match, the program doesn't have to tell you. And you have to disclose in your residency application if you have military obligations to fulfill...