Though I am not in the program under the army/navy scholarship, I have been in contact with my local medical recruiter and recently had him speak to our schools Pre-Dental Society. I am currently deciding whether to do this program and this is what I understand of it all...Note when I say army or navy, military or service - i mean any of those programs because they're basically identical
1.) Plain and simple, it's popular because they will pay for school so you will have no real monitory debts after graduation and owe them only 4 years of service in return. Additionally, while in dental school they give you the stipend, pay for tools, books, etc. Also, while in "service" you are paid a salary and more stipend for housing, food, etc. While you're paying back your years, paid national holidays, random days off, lots of vacation (I want to say you get almost 40-50 days off a year).
2.) The stipend you receive while you're in dental school (10.5 months/year) you get approx $1,300 (that was last years amount, possibly going up this year) and then the 1.5 months you are not in school you go on "duty" which is basically being sent to Houston or DC army/navy hospital to learn about how to be an officer, how the military (army, navy, etc whatever you pick) operates, what is expected of you, etc. During this time you will be paid as an officer (get approx $5k for the 1.5 months). If your school does not allow time off, the army/navy understands and you don't have to go on this training duty.
3-4.) When you become a dentist (graduate dental school) you pick about 5 places to be sent to and you're off. NO you will not be put on the lines given a gun to go fight in the war. The army has just invested $200k in you; do you really think they'd risk something happening to you? You will be doing what you have been trained to do, fix teeth. You can be at a hospital in the USA or on a base in Hawaii or in the Middle East. Your rank I believe is Major and the pay is around $50,000. You can live on the base which is a self-contained town with playgrounds (if you have kids), shopping malls, food stores, etc and best part - all tax free. If you chose to live off base, they give you an additional food/housing stipend to pay for rent/mortgage (amount depends on location in the USA).
5.) Specializing - if you choose to specialize, the army will pay for this as well. You will do your training in a joint army/navy program (possibly be with either Scholarshiped army/navy students or be taught by army/navy specialists (it all depends). Due to the high demand in wanting to be an ortho or oral surgeon in civilian life, the ratios of apply:accepted across the country is very low as these programs are very hard to get into. If you do it through the military, the ratio is extremely lower, giving you a much higher chance of being accepted into their program (and obtaining your ultimate goal). The amount of years paid back depends on program (ortho approx 3, oral surgery approx 5) and you will still be receiving your pays. This is where it may get confusing...The army has just paid for 4 years of dental school so you owe them 4 years back. But what if you want to do OMS which is another 5 years of paid education, accumulating 9 years? Do you owe them 9 years in return? The answer is NO. Between the two programs, your dds/dmd and your specializing, whichever has the most years associated with it is the amount of years you owe. Example (remember, years are approx, I do not exactly remember): Dental School = 4 years, Ortho specialize = 3 --- you owe 4. However, Dental School = 4 years, OMS specialize = 5 year --- you owe 5. Not a bad deal either way.
6.) I do not know the percentage but I am sure there are a few per school who do it.
Extra - upon the conclusion of the years you owe (3.5 years into the 4), the military will be wanting to keep you. How do you think they entice you to stay? Money. No obligation "stipends." I don't know how true it is, but our recruiter said he heard an OMS at the end of his payback term, was given around $8-10k to stay. In addition, with all these years you are in the service, paying back your debt you rank will go up so your pay will go up. If you specialize, you owe more years but your pay goes up due to your newly acquired skills. Now think about this...you're paying back you years but you're also accumulating years towards army retirement (20 total). I know it may seem like a long time, but after an OMS military education you have done 5 of 20 years. Depending on your age, you could be retiring at 50-55. What retirement pay is, I have no idea. Also, the service can provide a lot for you. As stated earlier with all the days off you get or vacations, you can stay at bases worldwide (Hawaii's pretty nice). Do you like to sky-dive, learn how to fly a plane, see what its like to do army training (but not actually have your a** kicked) - the military provides these types of services for you to take part in which I thought was pretty cool.
Hope this all helped and was not too much or too confusing.
