Non-traditional and HPSP Route

[GlennGuglia]

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After three cycles, several alternate lists, finally received the coveted acceptance(s) this year and have committed to a medical school. By the time of the white coat ceremony in August, I will be 30 years old. It's been a long journey through postbacc but definitely feels great to be starting the chapter of things. Now, that I have celebrated for 48 hours or so, it's time to really figure out the next step of this: financial aspect.

I'm single, no kids, no real obligation or family and at the end of the four years will be looking at total, undergrad, grad, medical, and postbacc at about 375k or so in debt. Obviously, the number is a bit overwhelming. Long before my acceptance, I had considered the HPSP route in the event that this did all work out. I have read the pros and cons of doing HPSP inside and out but have not seen to many extensive threads regarding if anyone in the non-traditional role had decided to go this route in the past and was accepted into HPSP and what their experience/thoughts have been like? I have absolutely no idea what I'm leaning towards as far as a specialty and my anxiety is "lost" time, in regards to my career, in the civilian life if I chose not to stay on with the military, especially if I end up doing surgery. But at the same time, having some of that $375k shaved away would have some comfort value to it. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[WernickeDO]

I was even older than you when I started med school (not much more). This is actually a pretty good question to ask, because the military can take away years from your practice with operational assignments. I'm not saying that a 27 y/o has time to kill that a 35 y/o doesn't, but when you consider that milmed can make you delay your training and/or practice for several years, it makes you think. If I am fortunate enough to get picked up for training next cycle, I will be 41 when I finish training. If I had not been military and had gone straight through a 3 year training program, I would be 37. Age is only a number, blah blah, but training/practice for military docs gets delayed all the time for various and sundry reasons. If you are looking to buy a house, start a family, or any other grown-up things, it's easier to do this after your residency is complete.

This is just my opinion, I'm sure there is a 50 y/o out there who is thrilled to have taken HPSP. And there are probably 25 y/o that rue it. This is all a very big con against HPSP, in that you simply cannot predict (at any age) what your life is going to be like 5 years from now, and being mil will cause you to lose a lot of autonomy. We don't need to dive on that. I was going to be older than many of my classmates anyway, so the age factor is a wash, but while my former classmates graduate from residency this year, I am looking to repeat an internship. This is the nature of the beast in milmed, so whether you are a non-trad or not, consider if delaying your medical education and career is worth the debt relief.

 

[psychbender]

If your primary reason for joining the military is for the money, don't.

You are really not that nontraditional, 30 is not too old to start med school. However, the fact that you haven't worked and paid down any of your loans is a bit disturbing.

Regarding money, if you go into a surgical field, you will make a quite a lot more per year as a civilian than you would in the military, making the HPSP scholarship a money losing proposition. If you go into a lower paying field, you have the option of doing FAP for some additional money for loans, in exchange for only a few years of service with pay not too far off from what you may have made in the civilian world.

Since your primary motivation is money, and your future is uncertain, I would advise against HPSP, and consider FAP, if you choose a lower paying field, and are still concerned about your debt load.

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[notdeadyet]

The benefits of HPSP are less for you than for other folks due to your pre-existing debt, which sits and accumulates while you serve in the military, so the hit you take in the delta between your civilian pay and military pay is more pronounced. I'd keep that in mind.

 

[Red Lobster Actual]

Well...I don't know if pre-existing debt is a negative in this case. With HPSP after 4 years he'll still have a loan burden of about 100k?...can pay that off during military residency or a huge chunk if doing a GMO and out plan, and now he'll have GI Bill for residency.

In this case I'm saying is if he goes civilian he'll definitely have debt accumulating throughout medical school and residency. I think the day to day life style differences will be pretty significant for someone of this age range (I'm in this age range) considering if he goes civilian I do not know how tolerant he'll be living on instant noodles and sharing a room and bathroom with another person for another decade. Pretty tolerable and even fun when I was 22-25 but that kind of lifestyle became quite sad the closer I marched towards 30. As opposed to being in the military and making enough to at least afford one's own place.

OP, I'll just repeat what an old salty Navy veteran in emergency medicine told me when I asked him if I should take HPSP. "Are you rich? No? Then you should probably take HPSP."

Of course most optimally he should actually want to serve...

 

[Red Lobster Actual]

However, the fact that you haven't worked and paid down any of your loans is a bit disturbing.

From the sounds of it his debt burden prior to medical school is around 100k and if he attended one of those parasitic special master's programs that promises a few people per class entrance into their respective medical schools, a single year can cost 70k (50k tuition + 20k living). From personal experience it is near impossible to work in any capacity during that time frame.

 

[psychbender]

From the sounds of it his debt burden prior to medical school is around 100k and if he attended one of those parasitic special master's programs that promises a few people per class entrance into their respective medical schools, a single year can cost 70k (50k tuition + 20k living). From personal experience it is near impossible to work in any capacity during that time frame.

It's the timeline. Assuming undergrad right after highschool, he'd be only 22 after graduation. He turns 30 next year when he starts med school. Unless he did a PhD, followed by a post-bac, I'd expect at least a few years to try and work to pay off those student loans.

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[HighPriest]

I was in the exact same boat as you are. If I could go back, I definitely would not have done HPSP. I'm looking at so many job offers with debt payback options and salary offers for which I wouldn't need it anyway that it's ridiculous.
If I had ended up in primary care maybe I'd have a different outlook, however.

I was about the same age, and I had a reasonable amount of debt prior to starting med school. I was able to pay off some debt through residency, so I see the potential benefits there. However, I've met many civilian docs in my field who graduated the same year who would be in a very similar situation to me financially, probably with more in a retirement account if they're smart about it, but with a well oiled skillset and an established practice outside of the military. They're not superbly better off than I am financially, but that's only one of the measures you should be considering.
Caveat: I'm a sub-specialty surgeon. My potential salary is above average. But, my residency was longer too so on the civilian side I'd have accrued interest longer as well.

I definitely feel like I gave the last of my youth to the Army. Age might just be a number, but once that number gets so high and you start to realize that some of the patients you see with MIs and cancer are around your age, it changes your perspective. I've spent the better part of a decade so far working places I don't want to work, burdened with tasks I don't want to do, living in places I hate to live, watching the skills I worked so hard to hone fade away, and struggling and working much harder than I should to try to prevent that from happening. It's one thing to do that having no perspective when you've gone high school to college to med school to residency straight through. It's another when you were a non-trad who had a life before medicine, and who went in to medicine to do something you love. I am acutely aware that this isn't what I wanted when I started. But I had been misinformed that the army wants doctors. They don't. The Army wants officers who know how to do medicine in a pinch. The gestalt I feel is that any medicine you practice that isn't down range is a bone they're throwing you to keep you quiet. So I won't really start my medical career until I'm 40. It's not insurmountable, but frankly I feel a bit robbed by that initial misinformation.

So it goes back to the only real truth: if you want to be a military officer, HPSP is on the table. For any other reason, I'd recommend you strongly reconsider.

If you just feel like you'd "like to give back" or "like to be in the military" or "had a lot of family in the military (I was all of those), I don't think that's enough. Because you're not a doctor in the military's eyes, you're an officer who can do medicine. They will treat you that way.

 

[HighPriest]

OP, I'll just repeat what an old salty Navy veteran in emergency medicine told me when I asked him if I should take HPSP. "Are you rich? No? Then you should probably take HPSP."
...

Of course, many of those who go into medicine will be "rich." Not in the Bill Gates sense, but in the sense that they'll make somewhere in the top 5% income. So that is misleading to those who, like myself, looked at $300,000 in debt as an unthinkable number on the front end of my training. Today, that seems like a very manageable number. Where I grew up, the family docs are making $200+ base salary and they get a loan repayment system. It may not be the average, but it's out there is my point. And making that kind of money, you can manage your loans. Yes, you'll be in the relative poor house for some time, but you'll be free, you'll be practicing medicine as your primary job, and you'll be established somewhere you chose to live. It's not perfect. But it's competitive with HPSP.

If you're a urologist, there's no comparison in my book.

 

[HighPriest]

The benefits of HPSP are less for you than for other folks due to your pre-existing debt, which sits and accumulates while you serve in the military, so the hit you take in the delta between your civilian pay and military pay is more pronounced. I'd keep that in mind.

I'd actually argue that,depending upon the amount of debt, pre-existing debt may argue in favor of HPSP because you can pay it down during residency and not accrue new debt during med school, much as it pains me to say that.

 

[backrow]

I don't want to seem like a Debbie downer here, but definitely don't plan on getting the HPSP as your total plan or get your hopes super high so that you are disappointed when you aren't accepted.

Someone who applied three times has something in the record that is going to give the HPSP Board pause. The avg Navy acceptance right now is over a 30 MCAT (not sure what that converts to on the new version) and around a 3.5 GPA I believe.


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[On the cusp]

If your primary reason for joining the military is for the money, don't.

You are really not that nontraditional, 30 is not too old to start med school. However, the fact that you haven't worked and paid down any of your loans is a bit disturbing.

Regarding money, if you go into a surgical field, you will make a quite a lot more per year as a civilian than you would in the military, making the HPSP scholarship a money losing proposition. If you go into a lower paying field, you have the option of doing FAP for some additional money for loans, in exchange for only a few years of service with pay not too far off from what you may have made in the civilian world.

Since your primary motivation is money, and your future is uncertain, I would advise against HPSP, and consider FAP, if you choose a lower paying field, and are still concerned about your debt load.

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i'm in a similar situation, starting school at 34, and probably going to end up in a "lower paying specialty" (pathology--dont laugh!). I'm extremely close to signing up for the HPSP and have recently posted about my concerns for my parents/spouse. I was wondering about the FAP too. But is there an age limit for the FAP? I've looked at their brochure but there wasn't much detail on that part.

 

[On the cusp]

Well...I don't know if pre-existing debt is a negative in this case. With HPSP after 4 years he'll still have a loan burden of about 100k?...can pay that off during military residency or a huge chunk if doing a GMO and out plan, and now he'll have GI Bill for residency.

In this case I'm saying is if he goes civilian he'll definitely have debt accumulating throughout medical school and residency. I think the day to day life style differences will be pretty significant for someone of this age range (I'm in this age range) considering if he goes civilian I do not know how tolerant he'll be living on instant noodles and sharing a room and bathroom with another person for another decade. Pretty tolerable and even fun when I was 22-25 but that kind of lifestyle became quite sad the closer I marched towards 30. As opposed to being in the military and making enough to at least afford one's own place.

OP, I'll just repeat what an old salty Navy veteran in emergency medicine told me when I asked him if I should take HPSP. "Are you rich? No? Then you should probably take HPSP."

Of course most optimally he should actually want to serve...

THIS!

i don't have much undergrad debt since i'm also a non-trad and have been working full-time, but i keep reading "HPSP? meh just live frugally during and after your residency for another few years and you'll be able to pay it all off!"

...sigh...unfortunately i love pathology and i probably won't make tall cash doing that and like you said, "living frugally" in my late 30s/early 40s...been doing that my whole life...cuz...-in response to the salty Navy vet's question: "erm...not rich"...so still thinking about this