Transition From Military to Civilian Practice

[don juan]

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Hello,

I'll be starting medical school this fall. I'm going to a top 50 state school with a tuition after fees of about 16,000. I come from a poor family and will have to take out full loans for schooling and for living expenses. I'll be 25 when I begin medical school which I guess is a little older than most. I've received a Naval HPSP scholarship and I'm having a difficult time determining if it's right for me. Even with all the negative things written in this forum I'm still very much attracted to alot of the things the navy has to offer (travel, adventure, service, etc.). I know that I would like to spend a part of my career in service of my country (albeit a small part). Four years seems resonable. But at the end of the day I know that I"m going to want to settle down into the private sector and try help my patients as best I can and at the same time try to make some money and provide more things for my children than I had growing up. My question is how much does a naval residency and time spent in service effect your ability to transition back into the private sector and be a well respected, well paid physician. I'm thinking of going into surgery. I was also wondering if perhaps going into the navy may improve my chances of getting a surgical residency meaning is it more difficult to match in the civilian world than the military. What if I had sub par USMLE scores? Also, about debt, after doing the math my loans would come out to about 160,000 which is kind of scary. I know I could pay them back probably pretty quickly if all goes well, but when I was 20 I was diagnosed with cancer and one of the things I learned from that is that there is no certainty in life. What happens if you had that kind of debt and something awful happened that made practicing the type of medicine you always wanted impossible? I"m just not big on debt even if the abilty of paying them back is very likely. Anyway, my main question has to do with transitioning back from military to civilian medicine. Any input?

 

[RichL025]

Well, I've known several surgeons who have transitioned back to civilian life where I promptly lost touch with them 🙂 But before they left, they didn't seem overly concerned about their job prospects.

Addressing your other points - only accept the HPSP scholarship if you have a desire to serve your country as a physician. Forget about the money, I don't care HOW poor you are, if you can get into medical school, there are other ways of paying for it.

Something you should realize about the navy - the navy has a much higher proportion of docs do GMO tours than the other services do, right now the majority of surgical residents have already finished a GMO tour (2-3 years). Not only will this delay your specialty training, but it effectively increases your payback obligation, since you would graduate from medical school owing 4 years, pay off 2-3 as a GMO, and then accrue 5 more going through a gen surg residency. Just something to think about. The army and air force have more "straight-through" residencies, but it is NOT guarunteed in ANY of them.

Once again, your PRIME motivator should be desire to serve your country as a physician, taking care of those who also serve (and their families, retirees). Any other considerations should be disticntly secondary, or it will be a looooong five years....

Oh, and 25 is a little older than most? Bullcrap, you're center-of-mass. Hell, I didn't even start med school until I was 34...