<p>I understand that after graduating USNA you have to serve at least 5 years of service. But if you want to go into the Medical Corps route does med school count as part of the 5 years, or do the 5 years start after med school when you are an intern. Or do they start after all of that?? I am just very confused about this! Any help would be awesome!!!</p>
<p>Depends on what you mean by Medical Corps.</p>
<p>As an “MD,” your commitment to serve will start after your schooling is completed, and the additional schooling (Medical school, internship, residency, etc) will add considerable time to the five years as well. Keep in mind, internship, and residency, are still part of your medical training.</p>
<p>You can attend med school directly out of USNA – 15-25 mids per year may be offered the opportunity. If you attend USUHS (military med school), you owe 7 yrs plus your 5 from USNA (total of 12). If you attend a civilian med school, I believe you owe 4 yrs of payback for a total of 9. Your time in med school and time in residencey do not count toward payback.</p>
<p>so what if you join the navy after you have completed college and med school and residency and all of that. How many years do you have to serve?</p>
<p>The government typically wants two-for-one. Two years of work for every year of education they pay for. If that’s true for sailors, then if they pay for 4 years toward MD, intern & residency then you’d owe 8. </p>
<p>But I recall that (for the Army) internship and residency (or maybe just one ???) was done in uniform at the base hospital. In that case those would not count as additional “training” so would not add years to your obligation. ???</p>
<p>But then again…oh heck, I’m confusing even myself. Somebody know the current policy?</p>
<p>yeah that was confusing, haha. But what i was asking if you dont go to the usna for college and go to a regular college and then go to a med school on your own account, but after all of that is done and you have completed your residency and everything. and after ALL OF THAT you want to join the navy and be a doctor. how many years do you have to serve?</p>
<p>^^^ a lot.</p>
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<p>Folks here are best able to answer USNA questions. If you want to be an MD outside of going through USNA, you should check with your local officer recruiter. He/she will have that information – or can get it.</p>
<p>[Physicians:</a> Health Care: Careers; Jobs: Navy](<a href=“http://www.navy.com/careers/healthcare/physicians/?campaign=NHC_Physician_CareersJobs]Physicians:”>Find Careers in the U.S. Navy | Navy.com)</p>
<p>[Physicians</a> : Navy Health Care](<a href=“http://www.navy.com/healthcare/physicians/]Physicians”>Find Careers in the U.S. Navy | Navy.com)</p>
<p>I have a friend who is trying to do this from ROTC.</p>
<p>You go to medical school, Complete a 1-year internship, and then either begin payback immediately as a GMO or continue directly on to residency and begin payback after that. </p>
<p>Long story short time in medical school, internship, and residency doesn’t count as payback. You will owe 5 years from your time at USNA and then either 4 additional years (from a civilian medical school) or 7 additional years (military medical school).</p>
<p>You should check out [Military</a> Medicine - Student Doctor Network Forums](<a href=“Military Medicine | Student Doctor Network”>Military Medicine | Student Doctor Network) for more info.</p>
<p>But you should probably get your information from an official source before you plan your life around it…</p>
<p>For the past 5 years, inexplicably, the Naval Academy has not permitted more than 10 graduates to go into the Medical Corps. In fact, in a couple of those years less than 10 were permitted. Apparently, this new quota is coming down from above.</p>
<p>It’s somewhat puzzling why they do not permit more Naval Academy graduates to enter the Medical Corps because the Navy gets much more bang for their buck since, in addition to their service commitment for all their medical training, they also must serve out their Naval Academy commitment. These obligations are served successively, not concurrently.</p>
<p>Simple! $$$!</p>
<p>It is much cheaper to allow undergraduate education to be expended by others than requiring it of others. In addition, if it were generally open, USNA’d have to beef up its dirth of biology offerings. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I’d bet, recognizing the unique nature and virtually guaranteed income earning potential of the medical profession, not a worthy investment in terms of funding future career officers. </p>
<p>It is a modest deviation on the JAG theme. Lawyers are a dime a dozen to come by AFTER their education has been completed. MDs have that challenge of funding med school, which the Navy is willing to buy into in exchange for some years of service. Most MDs “five and dive” or whatever their obligation is. 4 years if med school tuition’s paid for? Not sure.</p>
<p>And there is one more piece to this and that is the government funded med school. My guess is that there are severe limitations on the fed subsidy for that one. So the Navy likely gets more better MDs educated at Hopkins or Georgetown or Penn or wherever than they could fund and prepare there. It’s adequate for one primary reason … superior students entering who are smart and motivated. </p>
<p>But in a word, this is the no-brainer of all time. Money. With diversity and quality being #2 and #3.</p>
<p>That’s just my point! It is far more cost efficient to send a USNA (or NROTC) grad to med school than a civilian.</p>
<p>First of all, I assume they are going to give out x-number of scholarships for medical school anyway. It might as well go to those who are carrying ADDITIONAL under-graduate obligations. </p>
<p>Example:</p>
<p>A graduate from Michigan State applies to the HPSP military scholarship to pay for his medical school.</p>
<p>At the same time, a USNA graduate gets accepted for an HPSP scholarship.</p>
<p>Both of them attend 4yrs of medical school that is paid for by the government. It costs the same one way or the other.</p>
<p>After 4yrs, they both graduate and serve a 3yr residency.</p>
<p>Now, they are BOTH doctors.</p>
<p>The civilian now owes the military 4yrs.</p>
<p>The USNA graduate owes 9yrs.</p>
<p>They get more than double the obligation out of the USNA grad because he has to serve out his USNA commitment <em>and</em> his medical school commitment.</p>
<p>The biology program at USNA has been significantly “beefed” up over the years. Everything one would need to attend medical school and do well on the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) is readily available at the Naval Academy (unlike past years).</p>
<p>I have twin sons who each got accepted into the Medical Corps (just found out). One majored in Chemistry but the other majored in Mathematics. </p>
<p>When they were in the application process (2008) the Naval Academy was sending nearly 20 into the Medical Corps. The directive allows up to 2% of the graduating class to go into the Medical Corps. This is a service academy directive - not just a USNA thing. Both the Air Force Academy and the Military Academy abide by this directive and send MANY more to medical school than the Naval Academy. I have never heard an explanation why, uniquely, the Naval Academy severely limits this and sends far less than is authorized by the directive. I guess the Navy is budgeting itself differently than the Army and Air Force. No explanation has ever been provided.</p>
<p>West Point early identifies their future doctors and walks them through the process. The Naval Academy has the attitude, “YOU figure it out!” with regards to getting into medical school.</p>
<p>Well, you and I have a similar conclusion, but not really. </p>
<p>My contention is that it would be FAR CHEAPER and cost-effective to pick them up in med school. </p>
<p>You don’t seem to be recognizing the enormous and disproportionate cost of using USNA grads as docs. How so?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It prevents enlisting line officers, the primary purpose of USNA. 10 slots no longer available. Admittedly a fairly modest expense in the big picture.</p></li>
<li><p>The monetary cost. While USNA constantly fudges the figure, we all know that the real cost of educating a Mid is well over $500K/year. WELL OVER! But those are current dollars. When in fact, under your model, you need to adjust those to 7 or 8 year “out” dollars, since there is no service until then. So the number goes WAAY up. Maybe a million or more/ student … and that is ONLY for undergrad expense.</p></li>
<li><p>And the military, or at least the Navy, could get out of the med school biz and leave it to others who can and do do it better and cheaper.</p></li>
<li><p>And USN can benefit from a far more diversely trained med corps, getting docs from literally every med school they want. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>This is my same contention about NAPS. There is but one “good” reason to maintain NAPS … to control those candidates who go and who return absent of virtually all the traditional muster your twins needed to pass. There is good reason that NAPSTERS in general are dissed as “Oh, he’s a Napster.” In general, taking a calc and chem course for another year does not dramatically change the essence. But my real point is … it is far far more cost effective to send any and all NAPsters to Foundation schools. AND those places provide far far superior “prep school” education than NAPS. </p>
<p>Same is true, imo, about medical education. I believe the ONLY reason USNA continues to dangle those 10 slots (it was 9 in my son’s class) for med students is to attract the 50 great kids who’d automatically eliminate USNA as option if they thought there was zero shot. It’s a “bait and switch” that gets MANY great kids to USNA but not to med school. </p>
<p>Sorry to be so seemingly skeptical about this one, but I think there is a method to this madness. And it is not a “random” ten. It is a compromise, with USNA saying we want these top shelf kids, but we only want to surrender 10 slots to a restricted line, as the USN says, “hey we can get more, better, and cheaper docs for a whole lot less $ outlay who are trained at all the top schools.”</p>
<p>Those are good points. I have always considered the “Fulfill Your Destiny” video that features some midshipman becoming a doctor as false advertising. Especially so once they dramatically reduced the number of Medical Corps slots.</p>
<p>[USNA</a> - Fulfill Your Destiny Promotional Videos](<a href=“http://www.usna.edu/fyd/index.php?video=ramchandar]USNA”>http://www.usna.edu/fyd/index.php?video=ramchandar)</p>
<p>That service selection represents less than 1% of the graduation class - hardly worthy of such promotion.</p>
<p>My sons went to the academy with the primary intention of going for one of those Medical Corps slots. But, at the time, they were routinely sending nearly 20. On I-Day (2009), I talked to the Commandant (who was one of my Plebes) and he said that they would never stop a grad from going Medical Corps if he was fully qualified. Not true! No matter how qualified you are, if you’re not one of the ten who are selected - you’re odd man out. The two Med Corps alternates could easily get into a medical school if there were at any school <em>other</em> than the Naval Academy.</p>
<p>But still - I don’t see how it’s cheaper. A scholarship is a scholarship; whether you give it to a kid coming out of the University of Michigan or you give it to a Naval Academy graduate. The difference is that the Naval Academy graduate is going to have a heftier commitment than the Michigan grad for the same time spent in medical school.</p>
<p>And it’s not like they desperately need people in unrestricted line communities. For instance, aviation is trying to invent ways to get rid of pilots in the training program. There is a RIF going on. There are more officers being commissioned each year than the Navy needs. 20% of those from the class of 2010 who went to flight school, today, are no longer in the Navy.</p>
<p>Good insights. It would be interesting to really know. One way to look at it might be this … Take the alleged cost of a USNA per student education. We hear $500K. In fact it is far greater than that when one factors in costs of operating NAPS, Alumni and Foundation operations, and other ancillary expenses not “counted” in the calculation, expenses that would go away absent a USNA. </p>
<p>But in any case take that figure … and then figure that Navy might have to enlist twice as many non-USNA docs for each USNA doc in light of tenure of obligation. So from that POV, it might well be “cheaper.” Altho that word doesn’t belong in this discussion at all, might we agree. </p>
<p>Indeed, I agree as noted before. The “med school” dangle is a classic USNA bait-and-switch. My son’s roommate was WELL qualified for med school and would be there had he stayed at his early secular institution and performing at the same level. He’s a pilot in training. </p>
<p>I’d be greatly hesitant to advise any student committed to that path … without a 5 year (or more) recess of service in USN or USMC … before entering med school. Completing med school at or about age 35, and conceivably hundreds of thousands in debt is not my idea of a great plan for life … especially with a wife and 2.3 kids then in tow.</p>