National Guard --> Med School

[mmcclai2]

Hello,

I am enlisted in the Army National Guard, 3 years into a 6-year contract. I am planning on applying to med school this upcoming year.

Has anyone on here applied and started med school while being enlisted in the National Guard?

Was it easy to get put into med student/non-deployable status? I am going to contact my unit and see if I can be moved to this status, but I'm MOS-qualified as a helicopter mechanic, so I'm not sure they'd move me out of this MOS before my contract is up.

Does anyone know, generally, what a deployment while in med school would do? Would the med school just defer you a year where you're at? Or would this be a huge issue? Is it like a job where I'd be protected from any harm/retaliation because I'm in the military on a deployment?

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[Mr.Smile12]

Do you qualify for

Medschool, Academics, EMDP2

medschool.usuhs.edu

 

[Nontrad_FL_LGBT]

You need to talk to whoever handles med students at your unit/region. It's a MOS change situation that requires paperwork to be done. You probably forfeit any remaining bonus installments etc for your 6 year enlistment.

I'm not an expert but I was researching this myself a while back and came to the conclusion that it seems like a huge pain in the butt, lol.

 

[mmcclai2]

Thank you both for the replies! I will contact my unit. I may see if it's possible to just stay in my MOS. My unit just had a deployment, so chances are low it'd happen again before I am out. Not sure if they'll let me. I considered not even saying anything, but I think I'm required to let them know (?unsure about that).

 

[Nontrad_FL_LGBT]

Thank you both for the replies! I will contact my unit. I may see if it's possible to just stay in my MOS. My unit just had a deployment, so chances are low it'd happen again before I am out. Not sure if they'll let me. I considered not even saying anything, but I think I'm required to let them know (?unsure about that).

I've heard of people who stayed their MOS but you have no protections or benefits as a med students basically. You can be deployed, activated on state orders, have to stay for week long drills, etc. Med student MOS is basically, show up a few times a year, shadow med supply, and study.

 

[dpmd]

I wasn't national guard but army reserve. I wasn't aware that I had the option to reclassify once I got into med school so I just stayed in my MOS. Ended up getting deployed third year of med school for 15 months. My school was very supportive about it. They basically paused my education then helped me when I came back so that I wouldn't have to graduate late (I had done three weeks of ob gyn rotation before I left, came back with only two weeks before next rotation start date so they let me spend 2 weeks shadowing an obgyn team and called it good enough). My unit was very supportive of me being in school and let me do alternate activities for annual training when needed (both in undergrad and med school). They would have done what they could to not deploy me if it wasn't for the fact that they were being asked to deploy 20 of us with my MOS but we only had 6 deployable ones in the unit. I was an enlisted nurse and the deployment began at end of 2003 when the hospital at landstuhl needed augmentation due to the amount of injured coming through so they needed us badly.