USUHS (Ignorant) Questions :/

[Bengtsson]

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Hello! I am a freshman in college and I have wanted to be a doctor in the Air Force since I was thirteen. I am very interested in USUHS since it seems pretty ideal for people who want to make the military a career (and it pays a hefty amount to attend, too). I have some questions about it that I couldn't find by researching it, probably because they're kind of ridiculous. Anyway, here goes:

Do I have to go to a recruiter before applying? If so, will I have to take the physical test, and ASVAB, etc in order to get in?

Will I have to do Active Duty Tours over the course of my time there, or are they part of it? I mean, will the ADT's be every summer, or will I have to do COT/Physical Training during the school year?

By the way, after reading quite a few threads about this, I've come to realize that some of you guys have a sort of resentment towards USUHS and making the military a career in general, but I have already decided what I want to do.
I want to become a doctor to save lives, not to be rich, so this isn't financial so much as wanting to be prepared for military life and having a good medical education.

Thanks for reading this. I hope I didn't come off as too naive, seeing as this is my first post on this site and I'm still a little shaky on the site's community.

 

[000777]

Do I have to go to a recruiter before applying? No
If so, will I have to take the physical test? Yes (DoDMERB medical)
and ASVAB? No (that's for enlisted)
Will I have to do Active Duty Tours over the course of my time there? No

By the way, after reading quite a few threads about this, I've come to realize that some of you guys have a sort of resentment towards USUHS and making the military a career in general, but I have already decided what I want to do.
I want to become a doctor to save lives, not to be rich, so this isn't financial so much as wanting to be prepared for military life and having a good medical education.

Why was this statement included?

 

[Perrotfish]

Hello! I am a freshman in college and I have wanted to be a doctor in the Air Force since I was thirteen. I am very interested in USUHS since it seems pretty ideal for people who want to make the military a career (and it pays a hefty amount to attend, too). I have some questions about it that I couldn't find by researching it, probably because they're kind of ridiculous. Anyway, here goes:

Do I have to go to a recruiter before applying? If so, will I have to take the physical test, and ASVAB, etc in order to get in?

Will I have to do Active Duty Tours over the course of my time there, or are they part of it? I mean, will the ADT's be every summer, or will I have to do COT/Physical Training during the school year?

By the way, after reading quite a few threads about this, I've come to realize that some of you guys have a sort of resentment towards USUHS and making the military a career in general, but I have already decided what I want to do.
I want to become a doctor to save lives, not to be rich, so this isn't financial so much as wanting to be prepared for military life and having a good medical education.

Thanks for reading this. I hope I didn't come off as too naive, seeing as this is my first post on this site and I'm still a little shaky on the site's community.

These are all excellent questions and they show you're thinking ahead. That being said you're still several years away from actually applying to medical school. I think the main advice you're going to get here is to focus on the 25 meter target: explore your options in college while buffing your application for medical school and minimizing your debt. We will be here to answer questions about the military when you are within a year of actually applying, right now don't worry about it. Instead focus on building up an understanding of what makes you a successful medical school candidate.

BTW if you haven't committed to the military yet I would recommend that you don't join ROTC/the reserves/the national guard, wait until you're ready to apply for medical school. If you're already in ROTC or at a service academy that's fine too, it just makes things a little more complicated and costs you a little money down the line, but lots of physicians have taken that path before you.

 

[DrMetal]

Hello! I am a freshman in college and I have wanted to be a doctor in the Air Force since I was thirteen.

Make sure your desires to be a) be in the military and b) be a doctor are based on good reseach and experiences, not some fantismal dreams of a 13-yo. You have plenty of time to do such research and gain such experiences over the next 4 years (and perhaps longer, if you choose to take break in between college and medical school, something Id highly advise).

 

[pgg]

Perrotfish and Dr Metal have good answers and advice, as usual.

but I have already decided what I want to do.

Heh, famous last words.

I want to become a doctor to save lives, not to be rich, so this isn't financial so much as wanting to be prepared for military life and having a good medical education.

You may wish to reconsider how you phrase this kind of pre-emptive declaration of noble altruism in the future.

First, despite your intentions, it does paint you as naive. (No harm there, we all were at one point.) The desire to help people and save lives is a common motivator, and we all share it to a significant degree, but bold and broad statements that other things don't matter reveal a lack of perspective and maturity. Specifically, claiming to not care about money always rings hollow. Even if you're the 1 in a million person for whom it really is true, it will never be perceived positively. If you say that sort of thing to a med school admissions committee, they're not going to see a noble servant of humanity, they're going to see someone completely out of touch with the real world, or a cynic reciting a cliche that he thinks will score points. Of course it's all in the delivery, but this is something that's hard to deliver in a convincing way.

Second, it paints us (the people you're asking for advice) as greedy moneygrubbers, which is sort of insulting, even though that's probably not how you intended to come across.

This is actually kind of an annoyingly common MO for premeds looking for info on the the milmed forum. "Help me out but don't tell me anything I don't want to hear."



For the record, I'm a USUHS grad, now a few years out of a .mil residency, quite satisfied with my experience so far and well past the halfway point to retirement.

There is NOTHING you need to do in order to prepare for USUHS, except meet the admission requirements, which aren't any different than any other medical school. At least 1/2 the class is always people with no prior military experience, often no prior military interest, who check the box on the AMCAS application and apply cold.

It's a solid medical school that happens to have a couple extra (low hour) classes on military-specific topics during years 1 and 2. If not for wearing a uniform daily, it'd be almost possible for med students there to pretend they're not in the military at all. There are a couple of BRIEF military experiences worked into the USUHS curriculum, but they amount to only a few weeks over the four years.

For now, just focus on getting the universal med school prereqs done, and do well. Whether you ultimately decide to be a civilian phyician or a military physician, right now your focus ought to be on getting into medical school. So: take the right classes, get As, and give some thought to how you're going to convince an adcom that you know what you're getting yourself into.