National Health Service Corps...HELP!

[Dingrao]

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I will be attending dental school in the fall and am very overwhelmed with financial decisions. Does anyone have any advice or insight into the National Health Service Corps and how much of an influence do you have where they place you to do service?

 

[cbizzle7994]

I will be attending dental school in the fall and am very overwhelmed with financial decisions. Does anyone have any advice or insight into the National Health Service Corps and how much of an influence do you have where they place you to do service?

There's been a lot of discussion about it if you search. First of all, the scholarship is extremely competitive. It is much easier to get the loan repayment instead. In terms of influence over where you do service, it's like applying for jobs normally. Only difference is that you can only apply to places that are designated as NHSC scholarship places, whether they be prisons or community health centers. With the scholarship, if you can't find a job they just place you wherever they need you. With the loan repayment, you just don't get to apply for it if you can't find a job in a loan repayment designated place.

 

[yappy]

Can you do loan repayment at a privite practice as long as it's in their designated geographical area? Or is it confined to a jail or community health?

 

[cbizzle7994]

Can you do loan repayment at a privite practice as long as it's in their designated geographical area? Or is it confined to a jail or community health?

If you go on the NHSC website, they have a list of job postings by areas that have been designated as under served areas. Any place, private practice or not, can be designated as an under served area by the NHSC. The owner just has to go through an application process with the NHSC. Loan repayment then becomes a combination of first come, first served and people who work in places with the highest under served score.

 

[Nat426]

While typically you get to have some say in where you end up, based on openings at the time, there is this lovely paragraph out of the contract...

"BCRS reserves the right to make final decisions on all placements, in order to comply with statutory requirements for the placement of scholarship recipients."

So if you are really lucky, they can force you to go where they want and you can't do anything about it. At least that's how I read that.