Army Physician salary after military residency?

[truestrength]

Hello,

As I'm doing my research before making the decision on whether or not to apply to the U.S. Army's Health Professions Scholarship Program, I can't find any information on what the salary of a physician will be after he finishes his military residency. For example, does an emergency physician trained through HSPS earn the same as a civilian emergency physician? In terms of transitioning into civilian medicine after military medicine, is this difficult or done often?

Thanks in advance!

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[DD214_DOC]

No, you do not earn the same as your civilian counterparts.

The pay is somewhat complicated and more than I want to get into right now. Briefly, you will make six figures. However, you will make considerably less than your civilian counterparts, depending upon specialty. I get about half of what I would get as a civilian, or even less than half depending on location and position. I could make as much doing 1099 work about 20-30 hours per week as I do working 40-60 per week in the military.

However, for my personal situation, the, "break even" point when you compared what I gained during my time in financially (higher pay in residency, cost savings from med school, actually getting paid during med school) compared to what I lose in the pay difference is about 4 years after residency training. Funny enough, that's also my ADSO. After that point, I start losing money.

 

[HighPriest]

Just to add some detail:
Your base pay is easy to figure out because that is all publically available information. All you need to know is how long you will have been in the service, and what rank you'll be. There are additional pay items such as basic allowance for housing, which depend upon where you live.
You then get bonus pay to include things like incentive specialty pay, variable specialty pay. That is where the military feebly attempts to match the civilian potential, but does as well as a child trying to reach the moon by climbing a tree. A mentally disabled child with polio and a vestibular disorder. You can find out more about that here: http://www.military.com/benefits/mi...cial-pay-for-medical-and-dental-officers.html (the pay, not the mentally disabled child).
It very much depends upon what specialty you ultimately end up practicing. It can be a close match for primary care, but rarely is so for specialists.

 

[HighPriest]

Also the child is mypoic.

 

[HighPriest]

Don't get upset about the hypothetical child, he is also making you do 2 hours of training per year about how to fill out a timecard.

 

[j4pac]

You'll make competitive pay doing primary care (FP & Peds) when you take in consideration lack of debt and benefits. You can make more as a hospitalist. You will make significantly more doing any other profession.

If you join...join to selflessly take care of the men, women, and dependents of the military, who are very deserving of care. It's not worth it for any other reason.

 

[IlDestriero]

Hello,

As I'm doing my research before making the decision on whether or not to apply to the U.S. Army's Health Professions Scholarship Program, I can't find any information on what the salary of a physician will be after he finishes his military residency. For example, does an emergency physician trained through HSPS earn the same as a civilian emergency physician? In terms of transitioning into civilian medicine after military medicine, is this difficult or done often?

Thanks in advance!

When I was in I think I made ~185 as an anesthesiologist. I make more than twice that in academia now with 50 hour weeks, infrequent call, and more vaca. And most importantly, they can't deploy me to some desert crap hole at a moments notice or move me every 3 or 4 years disrupting my family and my wife's career.
Most people transition to civilian medicine as soon as their commitment is up and it is only as difficult as finding any other job in your specialty.
Don't join for the money if you plan to do anything other than primary care or you will likely come out worse off.
And don't forget about mediocre military GME, GMOs, etc.

 

[DD214_DOC]

Plus with a falling optempo and garrison environment, people are finding things to do to stand out for their promotion. This usually means goofy policies that create unnecessary admin or other nonclinical work for everyone else.

 

[CockerelOnTop]

Plus with a falling optempo and garrison environment, people are finding things to do to stand out for their promotion. This usually means goofy policies that create unnecessary admin or other nonclinical work for everyone else.

Exactly! The nonsense that comes from AMEDD is enough to make you run for civilian practice even if military money was better.

 

[IlDestriero]

Plus with a falling optempo and garrison environment, people are finding things to do to stand out for their promotion. This usually means goofy policies that create unnecessary admin or other nonclinical work for everyone else.

The pain of this cannot be overstated. I saw it in action. It is nice to be in anesthesia, because other than the surgeons, nobody understands what we really do or how we work. It makes it essentially impossible to try to rig trackable metrics to claim as their idea to aid in their promotion by messing with me and my department.
One day the senior OB nurse corps Commander called me to come and talk to her about our response times for epidurals. The conversation went something like...

Go to her office. She gets up and closes the door.
Hmmm, this ought to be interesting...

RN. We've noticed that it can take an hour or more from when we call you for an epidural and when it is bolused overnight and on weekends, and it is usually placed much faster during the day, sometimes in 15 or 20 minutes.
Me. Ok. Well, we are usually here during the day.
RN (perplexed) Well don't you think that an hour is too long for a woman to be in pain when she NEEDS an epidural?
Me. (Now annoyed and seeing what is coming).Nobody needs an epidural...
RN. (Huff) Well I think an hour is too long for the patients to wait for pain relief...
Me. (Sigh) Well for a crash c/s, a real run around screaming emergency, we have 30 minutes from the call to get the lady asleep and cut right? That's the standard of care?
Rn. Yes. That's right.
Me. Well, in that case I would park in the ED lot, sprint up the stairs, throw on the bunny suit over my clothes, meet the already prepped and draped lady in the OR, do a 60 second H&P, and be asleep and intubating 60 seconds after that while the OB is cutting.
If I come in from home in a very reasonable 30 minutes for an elective epidural, I have to park, change, get equipment, do a proper H&P and exam, discuss the risks and benefits of the procedure to get true informed consent, perform the epidural, a test dose, hook it up, secure it, and after confirming a negative test dose, which alone takes several minutes, then I can begin blousing the epidural.
RN. Ahh...
Me. Are you aware that at the big house (a reference to the real military medical center that does actual medicine, unlike this shabby glorified outpatient clinic where we are both unfortunate enough to be stationed) the surgeons and second call faculty that are at home have 60 minutes to come in and BEGIN to evaluate a patient in the ED for example, let alone be done with a procedure?
RN No.
Me. Not to toot my own horn, but can anyone place an epidural faster than me?
Rn. No, probably not.
Me. Well then, it sounds like my response time is about as good as anyone's could be, and certainly a lot faster than some of my colleagues, AND any surgeon in San Diego called in to the ED for an actual emergency overnight.
RN. (Silence.)
Me. Right? I could be faster, but I'd have to cut corners, and that is probably not smart for an elective procedure on a stable patient.
RN. No...
Me. Anything else, I'm going for a run.
RN Still looking confused.
Me. (Using my best Anthony Hopkins simultaneously condescending and completely dismissive trademark tone, clearly implying that while you think this is some gravely important matter that we are having a high level discussion about, in my mind, I'm already planning my run and wondering what to do for dinner) O-k.
Out the door. And out the door.

 

[CockerelOnTop]

It doesn't help that nurses are taking over every aspect of command. I feel like it is entirely possible we are stationed at the same shabby "super clinic", then again the problem is pervasive.

 

[DD214_DOC]

Imagine the metrics coming down in mental health.

 

[huskygirl123]

What are your odds of being deployed to war zones?

 

[pgg]

What are your odds of being deployed to war zones?

Either 12.7% or 83.9% ...


It's hard to quantify, mainly because wars are unpredictable and inconvenient.

2003-2012ish, odds were near 100% that at some point, you'd be deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq. Many people (most?) went more than once. I went three times, twice as a GMO and once after residency, and my experience was not the least bit unusual.

The next few years? I'm going to guess the odds of deployment to a war aren't very high for any given person, because there's no large scale boots-on-ground war going on.

But you shouldn't join if the notion of deploying to a war zone is distasteful. Such things are why the medical corps exist.

 

[HighPriest]

Yeah, I never got the opposition to deployment. You don't have to like it, to be sure. But your job is to support a war fighting machine. We can split hairs all day about how that is best accomplished, but if that machine is deployed somebody has to go with it.

 

[huskygirl123]

Yeah, I never got the opposition to deployment. You don't have to like it, to be sure. But your job is to support a war fighting machine. We can split hairs all day about how that is best accomplished, but if that machine is deployed somebody has to go with it.

I def don't oppose to being there to care for the soldiers - I guess I'm just a wimpy girl that is scared of war/guns/combat/PTSD - and wanted to do it for the scholarship and opportunity to work in trauma, but maybe it's not right for me if I can't handle middle east deployments right? Would it be similar with the Navy?
Thanks for all responses and THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your service!

 

[Shikima]

You'll be deployed with MC units as a Navy Physician. That could be sea, ground and/or air units.

The safest bet would be AF. Maybe check with the puddle pirates?