<p>hi i am a prospective west point student. i am entering my senior year next fall. i had a few questions about the five years of service after graduation. If you wanted to attend medical school would you have to do that after the five years, or could you do it during the five years? Also, is there a medical school at West Point and what do students interested in becoming doctors have to do? if anyone had any information it would be greatly appreciated. thank you.</p>
<p>I'm an USAFA 2010 appointee in the same situation. I'll give you some info from what I have learned. First, if you graduate with a high class rank, that is crucial to going into Med School directly AND you need to have a good MCAT score for the Army to consider sending you . The two choice available are military paid civilian med school (ie harvard or Johns Hopkins) or the Uniformed Services University (USU). Civilian route incurs another 4 years of service on top of the 5 years from the academy (you do not start repaying this until AFTER med school) and the USU incurs another 7 years.</p>
<p>Here's a good link. This is for the Air Force, but I'm sure it is similar for the Army. <a href="http://www.usafa.af.mil/df/dfb/medical/afcareer.cfm%5B/url%5D">http://www.usafa.af.mil/df/dfb/medical/afcareer.cfm</a></p>
<p>oh wow, so after medical school (if you go the civilian route), you would need to repay 9 years of service. thanks for the information.</p>
<p>thats not counting residency though, which does NOT count towards repayment. That is another 3-6 years depending on what specialty you go into.</p>
<p>btw, how long is med school?</p>
<p>med school is usually 4 years. </p>
<p>air force site said residency is usually 3-5 years.</p>
<p>Also, put it this way, if you are 18 going into the academy, you can pretty much bet, if you go the civilian medical school, that you will be able to retire from the air force at about age 40.</p>
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you will be able to retire from the air force at about age 40
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<p>air force? psshshhhhhh :-P</p>
<p>lovetorun, it doesnt sound like you know much about west point. I suggest you do A LOT of reading this summer so that you make an educated decision. this includes using the search function at the top of this forum... just start clicking threads and learn about things that have already been discussed, and you will learn a lot. Most importantly, if you couldn't be a doctor, would you be happy in the army? at west point?</p>
<p>thank you, yeah i definately do need to do a lot of research.. and i probably wouldn't be happy if i wasn't a doctor. thanks for the information everyone-it really helped a lot.</p>