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I have a relatively simple question. I'm a HPSP applicant and I believe my dream job is to be a field surgeon (AOC 62B). Hold the HPSP negativity; I want to be a military surgeon serving in or near a combat setting with the responsibility of bringing soldiers home alive. I understand the implications of military service: lower income, sub par living conditions, separation from family, etc. My question is how competitive is that AOC? If I am accepted into HPSP and do well in medical school/boards, how likely is it that I end up in this AOC?
Thanks for your response. However, I meant to say AOC. MOS is for enlisted.
A field surgeon does not operate and I would say is not really involved in saving lives on the battlefield, you are basically an administrator who keeps the troops healthy. If you want to be saving lives in combat you need to focus on trauma through something like general surgery or emergency medicine and being attached to a forward surgical team and not to a line unit.I guess I have more misconceptions than I thought. Could you elaborate on this? Before I lock myself into HPSP, I'd like to have a better understanding of the process of working my way into the job I want.
OP is correct regarding AOC vs. MOC. Here is the link to AR 611-1 where chapter 4 talks about officer classification system.
http://www.apd.army.mil/pdffiles/r611_1.pdf
Thanks for straightening this out. I went from being convinced I was right to being sold on the fact that I was wrong, just to be informed that I was in fact right in the first place. I don't understand why I continue to use this website as a resource. So far my topic has had an entire discussion regarding AOC vs MOS and one individual bashing the HPSP program as a whole (which I explicitly requested remain out of this discussion) without receiving a concrete answer as to how one gets into their preferred AOC or the competitiveness of those slots. I suppose I'll have to go find a ex-HPSP doctor personally.
Perrotfish's entire post is excellent, but I wanted to emphasize one point of his.1) If you want to work in a warzone, and put bleeding/burned/blasted service members back together again, you need to be a Surgeon. To be a Surgeon in a warzone the only requirements are that you did a surgery residency, and you were willing to go/couldn't weasel out of going to a warzone.
Welcome to the internet. Filtering what you need and discarding what you don't is generally necessary.Thanks for straightening this out. I went from being convinced I was right to being sold on the fact that I was wrong, just to be informed that I was in fact right in the first place. I don't understand why I continue to use this website as a resource. So far my topic has had an entire discussion regarding AOC vs MOS and one individual bashing the HPSP program as a whole (which I explicitly requested remain out of this discussion) without receiving a concrete answer as to how one gets into their preferred AOC or the competitiveness of those slots. I suppose I'll have to go find a ex-HPSP doctor personally.