<p>My daughter is a soon to be rising senior with am interest in pre-med.,specifically serving in the military as a physician. She is currently an EMT on our local ambulance corp. She is looking at small Lacs like Bates, Hamilton. I am pretty ignorant about ROTC etc.Is it possible to join ROTC for medical school, or does she have to do it in college. Pretty sure there is no ROTC at Bates. Also, are their other ways of getting to practice Military Medicine. We are liberal Democrats, so this came out of left field.I admire that my daughter wishes to serve in this way and am trying to help get information for her. Thank you!</p>
<p>You might want to take this to the Pre med forums here on CC. You’ll find a number of posters there with a wide array of knowledge about the whole process and I’ll bet one or more knows about the military process as well.</p>
<p>She can wait to commit to the military until she’s ready to start med school. That way she can avoid all of the extracirricular stuff that ROTC would entail, if she’d like.
My daughter had looked into letting Uncle Sam pay her way through medical school, but decided to go the Physician Assistant route instead. She spoke with recruiters from all branches of the service and liked the Navy the best. She could have signed on upon entering medical school and they would have paid her way through. No basic training involved (she has health issues and is incapable of running more than 1/4 mile and such, but the Navy doesn’t subject their doctors to basic training). She’d have then owed the Navy 7 years of service after finishing her residency.
Have your daughter talk with recruiters. They’ll be happy to answer her questions.</p>
<p>If she’s interested in Mil.Med., I would advise her not to do ROTC. There is a separate program called HPSP (Health Professions Scholarship Program) that is 1:1 payback after residency, and there is also the FAP (Financial Assistance Program) than you can begin taking during residency for a 1:1 + 1 payback afterwards.</p>
<p>But she definitely needs to do her own reading on this first. I recommend every stickied thread in [this</a> SDN subforum](<a href=“Military Medicine | Student Doctor Network”>Military Medicine | Student Doctor Network) as well as most of the 100+ post threads.</p>
<p>Take a look at: [Uniformed</a> Services University of the Health Sciences](<a href=“http://www.usuhs.mil/]Uniformed”>http://www.usuhs.mil/)</p>
<p>Don’t rule out undergrad rotc. My son wants to do the same thing.
He applied and received a 4 year rotc (army) scholarship for college. As long as he gets accepted to medical school, army will also pay for that. The links above are good for military medical school, but they will pay for civilian programs also. I think you can’t assume less than great health will be accepted because she will have to pass physical as well as meet physical training standards to go into military. Army and air force will allow undergrad rotc to continue on to med school. Undergrad navy rotc will not. Ask lots of questions to get the complete answers.</p>
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<p>There is a great deal of misinformation on the internet, and on CC about this topic. The military changes its requirements from time to time based on its needs, so you need to speak with people who are presently active duty physicians who have taken this route, and who have some knowledge about how it all works right now, not necessarily how it worked years ago.</p>
<p>ROTC will pay for undergraduate. The student will owe time. There ARE physical requirements that must be met.</p>
<p>Scholarships for med school are also available. They have become highly sought after since 9/11 and particularly since the economy crashed. At one time, years ago, some scholarships went unused. That is no longer the case. Again, there ARE physical requirements that must be met. Anyone who tells you that there is “no basic training involved”, and that a branch of the military will give a new med student who is “unable to run a quarter mile” a scholarship is is not someone who knows the full truth AT THIS TIME. the internet and CC are really not places to go for correct, current information.</p>
<p>It is possible to take an ROTC scholarship for undergrad and then an HCSP scholarship for med school and end up with a very valuable set of degrees with no loans to repay. You would, however owe the military a considerable amount of time. By the time you completed 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of med school and 4 or more years of residency you would owe at least 12 years of active duty service. Your undergrad and med school and residency training could be done anywhere in the country, not necessarily at a military school or military hospital. </p>
<p>It is a great choice, but it isn’t for everyone, and there are certainly lifestyle factors to be considered. Male and female physicians do deploy to war zones, and may be required to fill a deployment spot in a forward operating base serving, for example, as a general surgeon for soldiers, even though they trained as, for example, a pediatric oncologist. And yes, if deployed to a war zone, phyisicians have to be able to carry heavy loads, and are required to carry a weapon during those deployments.</p>
<p>She can join ROTC in medical school; ROTC programs take graduate students. However, she might not have the time to do so.</p>
<p>If she joins ROTC in undergrad, she’ll have to get an educational release to postpone her service if she wants to go to medical school directly after undergrad. I’ve heard that these are difficult to get and you have to have really good grades and a strong chance of succeeding in order to get them. Navy undergrad does allow you to go on to med school; you just have to apply for a release.</p>
<p>There are other ways. The military will pay for her medical school - there’s USUHS, but there’s also the Health Professionals Scholarship Program. Every branc has one. They pay for your medical school and give you a monthly stipend of around $2,000 a month. In return, you do a 45-day tour during some summers. After medical school, you go to residency - either a civilian one, or a military one. After your residency, you repay them with a year served for every year funded, with a minimum of 4 years (it’s longer if you do a military residency). Lots of people stay in, of course. I’m pretty sure with HPSP you don’t owe for residency if you do a civilian one, because the military doesn’t support you during a civilian residency, so if you did ROTC + HPSP you would owe at least 8 active duty years.</p>
<p>Then there are loan repayment programs once you are in the military. She can go the normal route and apply for Officer Training/Candidate School. Physicians usually get direct commissions, which means they don’t go through the 12-week version of OCS, but usually do a 5-week shortened version. However, it IS a form of basic training - you still have to do physical conditioning - and you have to pass the physical fitness test every year just like everyone else in the military, so if a candidate can’t run a quarter of a mile, she’s in trouble. The test is 1.5 miles.</p>
<p>I’m a liberal Democrat and I want to serve in the medical corps, too, as a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant. I’ve researched these programs because of my own interest 
The military is around 30% liberal and that goes up for certain branches (specifically Air Force). There are a lot of us out there Serving knows no political bounds!</p>
<p>Good information. My comment on navy referred to undergrad scholorships-we went to a military night and the naval officer made it clear if you got a naval scholarship you comission and go active duty after you graduate. You can do nrotc without a scholarship and may have more options. The key here is to ask questions of the right people. If you do a college tour contact the rotc dept and schedule an interview to find out how things work at college of choice. If college doesn’t offer rotc chances are there is a program offered at a close by college. </p>
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<p>I think Juillet is correct about residency payback. That payback time for residency is different now than it was years ago, and it differs depending on whether you do your residency immediately after medical school, or chose to do something else (like a tour as a general medical officer, or a tour as a flight surgeon after med school) before your residency. </p>
<p>Anyway, you’d be best served by contacting someone who has extensive, current knowledge of it all. Even those of us who have several family members who have gone this route may not be current in our knowledge.</p>
<p>There are lots of ways to get into military medicine. If she is sure that’s what she wants to do, the best option is probably USUHS (the military’s medical school) since you’ll be around like-minded students and get more training in military medicine. You can also go through undergrad (with or without ROTC), get into med school, then apply for HPSP, which will pay for your medical education. AFAIK, you then pay back 4 years of active duty (1 for each year of med school paid for) and 3 years of inactive ready reserve. Your residency does not count towards your payback time, even if you do a military residency. However, if you do a military residency (which the vast majority of those on a military scholarship do), your time there counts as time served for the purposes of retirement, etc. You can also wait until after med school to join the military.</p>
<p>But as others have said, don’t put too much stock in anything said here (unless by someone actively serving as a military physician/med student). You might consider talking to a recruiter (but only one who deals exclusively with the medical corps) - if there is a medical school near you, it is possible that the military sets up a table during their orientation week activities. I even saw a military medicine presentation at the orientation for the new interns at my school last week. I doubt anyone would care if you showed up to talk to them.</p>
<p>She can always join up after medical school, residency et al. I finally am old enough to not be recruited in any way after so many years of reserve junk mail. Some medical school classmates did the scholarship route and were limited to military residencies including years doing GMO work instead of their residency. One finally got out at 40- gets his pension but so far behind where he could have been financially- don’t do it for the money, far better to take loans and repay them. However, this person sounds like she wants the military lifestyle. Be wary of the obligations incurred, they don’t go away if you change your mind about the lifestyle. I can’t imagine taking time away from medical school studies to add ROTC type activities, but for some it was what they wanted.</p>
<p>OP, again, take what you read on CC or on the internet in general, with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Wis75, it isn’t helpful to post “I have a classmate who…”, especially if you are now old enough to no longer be getting recruiting mail. Whatever experiences your classmate may have had that many years ago are no longer particularly relevant today.</p>
<p>It is actually a wonderful advantage to NOT have loans to repay, to NOT have to pay malpractice insurance, and to NOT have to deal with the business side of civilian medicine. I speak from personal family experience, and I can say that the bonuses offered to board certified military physicians are large enough to offset what appears to be better income in the civilian world. My family member took an HPSP scholarship, did his payback as a flight surgeon, stayed in the military to do his residency, did his payback for those years, and THEN got out of the military. He went to a civilian practice which looked, at the time, to be a wonderful opportunity. In reality, the money that he actually netted after expenses and taxes was no better than the money he netted as a military board certified physician. In addition, family health insurance in the military was free. </p>
<p>After 3 years as a civilian physician, he came back on active duty and has never looked back. He has been able to do more as a military physician for essentially the same net pay, than he ever would have done as a civilian.</p>
<p>And I wouldn’t scoff at the pension. You get the pension after 20 years of service, but at that point most physicians are still pretty young, and continue working. Most “retired” military physician we know collect their pension and then take a job as a contract physician at a military hospital, or join a civilian practice. I don’t know any retired military physicians who are hurting for income.</p>
<p>Wedding in NY Times today for a young woman who went to Dartmouth and received a medical degree from the Uniformed Services University. She is a captain in the Air Force and a second-year resident in emergency medicine at an Air Force base.</p>
<p>I know nothing about the Uniformed Services University…but sounded interesting. Maybe someone else on this site will know about it…in addition to Post#11.</p>
<p>“We are liberal Democrats, so this came out of left field.”</p>
<p>There are a lot of Democrats who serve in the armed forces. ( a lot of Republicans, independants and agnostics too - the common denominator is that they all love the U.S.A and aren’t afraind of hard work.)</p>
<p>Speaking as a veteran myself, and as one who works closely with military medicine these days (but not within DOD), I caution the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>if one does accept military assistance, read and UNDERSTAND one’s commitment. I’d go so far as to have an attorney read any contract before signing. I’ve seen all too many folks over the years who had “promises” from recruiters that turned out to be anything but.</p></li>
<li><p>be aware that the service commitments are binding with no slack. While your med school peers may be off building careers in their chosen specialties, the military doc may be doing primary care at a remote post in the rural US. </p></li>
<li><p>the quality of military medicine, and hence its training, is variable - rarely the worst you can find, never the best (except in purely military areas like battlefield trauma). Think about whether the perceptions of military medicine impact future employment opportunities. For instance, in the previous post, was the limited civilian opportunity due to a poor civilian job market or the skills the individual brought from the military? </p></li>
<li><p>Research abounds in military medicine and its quality varies from mediocre to abysmal. You are much more likely to read about military medical research in a press release than in a refereed medical journal, because military medical research lives off earmarks, not competitively awarded grants. </p></li>
<li><p>Uniformed Services is not a med school that looks great on one’s resume outside the military. Within? dunno. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Military medicine can be a great career path for some folks, and a terrible path for others. You really must know what you’re getting into, and reliable information is not easy to get. You won’t get any from recruiters, who are sales people first and foremost. Their careers depend on meeting recruiting targets, not on honest information.</p>
<p>One’s best bets are current and former military physicians. How to find them, I don’t know. Maybe linkedIn? Talk to them about pros and cons.</p>
<p>^ Agree with all the above. It’s been a long time, but I had an AFROTC scholarship in the 70’s, got a “delay” to go to med school; wiser at 20, I turned down more funding in favor of loans, and 16 years after signing up, went on active duty the day they invaded Kuwait.</p>
<p>Good times…</p>
<p>A few things I would add; The rules can change in an Instant ("… yes, I know we said your time would be up next week, but we extended it…),you can often make WAY more as a civilian MD, it’s hard to predict how you’ll feel (i.e. about leaving your baby) in ten years, and be careful of recruiters.</p>
<p>Recruiters are sales people and the military pays their salary (in most cases). An individual should seriously consider what type of specialty they wish to pursue. An ROTC program or any other the military offers is just fine for OBGYN, GM, and perhaps a few others. Beware if your desire is to become some hot shot neurosurgeon or cardiothoracic surgeon. </p>
<p>My husband accepted an AFROTC scholarship and by the grace of God was allowed to attend a civilian medical school (one of the top 4 in the country) and then was allowed to train at one of the top 3 surgery residencies in the country. He then completed a cardiothoracic fellowship. He is now in the welcome to military medicine, pay back time. Once an individual trains in one of the best hospitals in the country it is nothing short of despicable when you see the substandard training within the AF. Residents who can’t put in a central line, intubate, and heaven forbid- run a code. </p>
<p>The military cares nothing about the number of cases a surgeon does each year. Many, many colleagues of my husband have to moonlight to get any type of experience. The military only cares that they can deploy you- period. A person gives up all freedom and say when it comes to their career. The US paid a lot of money to train my husband and they just assume use him as a general surgeon or give him 50 cases a year and be totally satisfied. He signed the dotted line and he’s committed to give 100% b/c of his obligation. Thank God we are nearing the end of this hellacious 12 years. </p>
<p>If you are considering letting the military pay your way, do not make this decision without a lawyer looking over your contract and thinking seriously about what type of speciality you wish to pursue. Many military doctors are happy with their experience but it’s usually because they have no idea what goes on in other hospitals around the country. They have been schooled, trained, and work for the military. We would give anything to have 300K in debt then to be subject to the US government telling you what to do and when you can do it (I might add my husband is one step away from becoming a colonel). If they don’t care about his career or professional recommendations I assure you they will not care about yours. </p>
<p>This is only our experience (and about 20+ other surgeons we’ve had the privilege of getting to know over the years). Think it through carefully, nearly everyone in my husbands med school class had loans. It is very sad to see talent go to waste and important career moves and decisions being decided by people who do not even possess a masters degree much less MD.</p>
<p>My friends’ S. was accepted to whatever(?) that made military pay for his Medical education, and he had to serve for few years after. This specific program (or spot in the program) was exteremly hard to get into (it could be that only one spot was available for our whole state, I am not sure, it was many years ago). Everything worked very well for this guy, he is about to leave army and open his own practice. He went to U of Chicago for UG and our state Med. School. He was never deployed but came close one time. I do not know more details. He was always very good student and made very good choice for himself.</p>
<p>
Sorry you haven’t enjoyed or at least tolerated your family’s life of service. Many of us have. I don’t know why you are so turned off by the military. I’ve known many military doctors who felt it was their honor to serve. And wishing to have $300K debt in place of your service commitment is short sighted (and probably a low estimate of what it would have cost). Doctors also get an additional special pay for medical specialties which is very generous (though not what could be made on the outside).
The military medical community is dedicated to improving the quality of life of its members and their families. Specialty surgeons, unless they are assigned to one of major critical med centers like Walter Reed, generally don’t get enough practice in that specialty. Because they tend to work on more common medical issues like IED cases…</p>