National Health Service Corps?

[india7]

Is anyone thinking about joining the natl health service corps? If so do you know if you have to go into primary care, and if EM is OK? Does anyone know people who have done this and what they think of it? Finishing med school with no debt sounds very attractive...

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[Celestron2000]

I'm not ready to commit to Primary care and going to an underserved area after training. However, once I finish, if I end up in PC and w/out any extenuating circumstaces, there's a good chance I'll do this. For more info check out:
National Health Service Corps

 

[Bucky Katt]

India, if you are talking about NHSC's financial assitance during med school, then one of the conditions is that, yes, you HAVE TO do a primary care residency and work in a primary care field afterwards for every year you receive fin aid. To my knowledge, primary care includes family/general practice, peds, OBGYN, but not EM. maybe others can add a few more to the list. it's a great way to finance med school if you are absolutely certain you will be heading into primary care. a lot of people just don't know this early on.

BK

 

[Bucky Katt]

p.s. a friend of mine went through with NHSC and was very happy with it. however, she knew that family medicine was her niche pretty early on.

 

[india7]

Thanks for the info...I really don't know if I want to do primary care or not so I guess this probably wouldn't be the best thing to do right now. It does sound like a good deal though if you know you want to go into PC and want to work in underserved areas.

 

[skypilot]

If you end up in primary care with loan balances, there will still be opportunities to do this. Remember the show "Northern Exposure" where the doc was paying off his loans by working in Alaska. There are all kinds of opportunities in underserved areas that include "loan payback." I think the payback will be about 30k per year so it would take you four years to be debt free!

 

[Spitting Camel]

What exactly is defined as primary care... I always thought that OB/GYN was. Am I wrong?

 

[Trekkie963]

What exactly is defined as primary care... I always thought that OB/GYN was. Am I wrong?

There are four primary care specialties: OB/GYN, internal medicine, family practice, and pediatrics.

Primary care basically just means that these are the first doctors you would go see, who would then refer you to specialists if necessary.

 

[kilroth]

No Em does not count because I have looked into it. However, rural EM pays so much you would not have to worry at all about paying off debt.

 

[SpiritiualDuck]

national health service corp also considers psychiatry as primary care.

 

[Heal&Teach]

There are also a couple of programs that don't require you to make a committment in advance of your medical training. You can do a loan repayment program if you choose to work in an underserved area, or do a research fellowship. An example of such programs are listed here: NIH (http://www.lrp.nih.gov/) & NHSC(http://nhsc.bhpr.hrsa.gov/applications/lrp_04/e.cfm).