Questions on HPSP - Residency Matches and Research and MS in Bioeng

[PurpleMilosz]

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Hello,

I have a few questions with HPSP! I would love to serve as a military physician for a few years and travel. I would be honored to be given that opportunity!

I am just fearful of the residency matching and also the amount of time during the summer taken away. I want to do a lot of research and I don't know how much it would effect this?! Also want to get an MS in Bioeng while doing my MD.

I understand you first do the military match program and then the civilian. With the military can you rank number 1 civilian defferment. I may have big dreams, but I love to do a residency at a place like Mass Gen or U of Wash. I am interested in surgical residencies and a little bit of em, but strongly favoring surgery. I would like to specialize and even do fellowships. I am also interested heavily in Research.

Here are my questions then:

1) Is it wise to do 4 years as a GMO after your internship year? Can I still be competitive after 5 years since graduation for residencies? Is there a way to make yourself competitive again?

2) What if you don't want to do any military residency? If you list civilian deferment will you be able to just apply to civilian?

3) Further during the four years could you postpone the HPSP scholarship and do a year between M2 and M3 to get a MS in Bioengineering?

4) Further in the summers do you still have plenty of time to do research? I want to be competitive and need research.

Also add anything I might be missing!

Thanks!

 

[teacherman84]

Read the stickies, a lot of thsee have been discussed at length. Short answers

1: discussed recently in a thread "gmo then gtfo" prob not worth it by the sound of your goals. but apparently people have done well in matches after gmo. you prob won't have recent research as a gmo as most gigs aren't at academic centers and deployme ts make it unlikely even if you are somewhere with the specialty of interest.

2: you can try, the likelihood depends on specialty, branch and the flavor of the year. what is likely one year is potentially impossible the next. if you are interested in civ only then don't do hpsp, if you're still interested in residency look into the FAP progran.

3: no

4: depends on school and when you do your officer training...but I wouldn't count on it

 

[HighPriest]

Also, you cannot rank civilian deferment and your MS would almost certainly just be wasted while you rot away in some $&@thole post.

 

[Perrotfish]

Hello,

I have a few questions with HPSP! I would love to serve as a military physician for a few years and travel. I would be honored to be given that opportunity!

I am just fearful of the residency matching and also the amount of time during the summer taken away. I want to do a lot of research and I don't know how much it would effect this?! Also want to get an MS in Bioeng while doing my MD.

I understand you first do the military match program and then the civilian. With the military can you rank number 1 civilian defferment. I may have big dreams, but I love to do a residency at a place like Mass Gen or U of Wash. I am interested in surgical residencies and a little bit of em, but strongly favoring surgery. I would like to specialize and even do fellowships. I am also interested heavily in Research.

Here are my questions then:

1) Is it wise to do 4 years as a GMO after your internship year? Can I still be competitive after 5 years since graduation for residencies? Is there a way to make yourself competitive again?

2) What if you don't want to do any military residency? If you list civilian deferment will you be able to just apply to civilian?

3) Further during the four years could you postpone the HPSP scholarship and do a year between M2 and M3 to get a MS in Bioengineering?

4) Further in the summers do you still have plenty of time to do research? I want to be competitive and need research.

Also add anything I might be missing!

Thanks!

1) Yes you can be competitive. The GMO thing seems to play well, and if you were competitive going in you will be competitive going out.

2) The military match is in December, the civilian match is in March. If you don't want to do a military residency you rank 'civilian deferment' as your #1 choice in the military match, and if you get it then you get to apply for a civilian residency. You will probably not get the deferment, and will likely be forced into a civilian residency.

3) No on multiple levels. No you cannot postpone a year on the HPSP scholarship. No you cannot get a good MS in any engineering field in a single year (that kind of crap is limited to MPHs and low tier liberal arts degrees). No an MS in biomedical engineering is not something you should get if you're going to be a doctor. This is a year of your life, its an enormous opportunity cost (like 300+ K), it would be tremendously isolating (as it would move you out of your medical school class), and it is completely f-ing pointless.

4) There is only one summer in medical school, between Ms1 and MS2, and its only 6 weeks long. If you do the HPSP scholarship you will need to use that for military training, so you will lose it, but more importantly that's not when students who do research tend to do it. The students who publish real paper tend to start projects in MS1 and work small amounts of time throughout the year through the end of MS2 to complete their projects, with write ups and journal submissions during MS3.

 

[Perrotfish]

Also, you cannot rank civilian deferment and your MS would almost certainly just be wasted while you rot away in some $&@thole post.

Is there a scenario where that MS would not be a waste?

 

[HighPriest]

Is there a scenario where that MS would not be a waste?

Potentially. But not in the military.