National Guard

Started by braveone
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braveone

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Hey I was just thinking in case I get into med school this year. Might it be a good idea to enlist in natl guard? I know there are programs that pay for school, but I was thinking of just doing something chill on the weekends, unrelated to medicine. But I looked at the jobs that they have and all the good jobs have a long period of training (i.e. >6months, therefore I would not be able to do it and go to school) and with such long training you must obviously do more than 1 weekend a month. Therefore I should forget about it?
 
braveone said:
Hey I was just thinking in case I get into med school this year. Might it be a good idea to enlist in natl guard? I know there are programs that pay for school, but I was thinking of just doing something chill on the weekends, unrelated to medicine. But I looked at the jobs that they have and all the good jobs have a long period of training (i.e. >6months, therefore I would not be able to do it and go to school) and with such long training you must obviously do more than 1 weekend a month. Therefore I should forget about it?
Click to expand...

Don't forget that they could send you to Iraq, Afghanistan, etc...
 
braveone said:
Hey I was just thinking in case I get into med school this year. Might it be a good idea to enlist in natl guard? I know there are programs that pay for school, but I was thinking of just doing something chill on the weekends, unrelated to medicine. But I looked at the jobs that they have and all the good jobs have a long period of training (i.e. >6months, therefore I would not be able to do it and go to school) and with such long training you must obviously do more than 1 weekend a month. Therefore I should forget about it?
Click to expand...

Please don't join the military simply for a financial incentive.

You will be miserable.
 
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Old Grunt said:
Please don't join the military simply for a financial incentive.

You will be miserable.
Click to expand...
It wasn't for financial incentive. For financial incentive you do those programs that recognize that you're in med school. I wanted to do it for fun. But that would seriously endanger my success in medical school. Which is why I am not joining🙁
 
You might be interested in the Army National Guard program for medical students called MDSSP. Here is a brief summary of what it is, but I would encourage you to do more research. And as was said above, don't do it for the money.
http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/arng/ocs/med_benefits.pdf
I'm just an Army Cadet, but I've research the program. So if you have any questions, feel free to PM me.
 
Yes, you should forget about it.

1) I don't know if you've been following the news lately, but we're in a couple of wars, a couple of relief efforts, and of course we are dealing with the neverending string of our own national disasters. National guard gets called up for ALL of that. You'd be looking at at least one and maybe two deployments on a 4 year contract. Honesty I can't see why anyone would join the reserves at this point, even if they're not looking at medical school. After all, if you know you're going to be spending a lot of time active duty anyway why not just go active duty and get the full benifits.

2) You don't get 'weekends' in medical school. For the first 2 years you will need at least some of them and probably almost all of them to study, for the second 2 years you will often be expected to work through the weekend, no excuses.

3) The military is not a summer camp and nothing they will make you do is something you would voluntarily do to recreate. If you want to run around shooting guns and camping out I recommend either hunting or a hardcore paintball team. Your job in the reserves will be a combination office drone, janitor, scut monkey, and occasionally you will get the chance to drill on the most miserable and mindnumbing parts of warfighting.

In any event, if you want to join the military, the military desperately needs doctors. Look into FAP or HPSP.
 
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