Enlisted/Officer military service after undergrad and before Med School

[841607]

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[deleted480308]

If you want to do both, you are far better to go to med school first.

 

[Gastrapathy]

If you want to do both, you are far better to go to med school first.

Not sure I agree. If you want to scratch the itch of being in the military, a single 4 year tour in the Marines will serve that purpose just fine. You also could consider being a Coastie. They have law enforcement missions and treat their enlisted pretty well.

If you join as a physician, you'll spend at least a decade in the service doing military medicine and its not pretty right now.

Neither is a good financial decision. The line path will get you the GI Bill and possibly Voc Rehab but that won't make up for the years of lost income as an attending.

You can also serve your country by working at a VA as a physician. There are some VAs that really need good doctors.

 

[deleted480308]

Not sure I agree. If you want to scratch the itch of being in the military, a single 4 year tour in the Marines will serve that purpose just fine. You also could consider being a Coastie. They have law enforcement missions and treat their enlisted pretty well.

If you join as a physician, you'll spend at least a decade in the service doing military medicine and its not pretty right now.

Neither is a good financial decision. The line path will get you the GI Bill and possibly Voc Rehab but that won't make up for the years of lost income as an attending.

You can also serve your country by working at a VA as a physician. There are some VAs that really need good doctors.

I'm thinking four years active means their mcat expires so they have to freshen all that up all over again while not having any "real" protected time to do so.

I was also assuming no incentive programs and joining once making attending so they only serve the standard officer commission and then can bolt if they want.

I'm also betting that they don't really want to be in the military as much as they think they want to be in the military and the "after" option gives them more time to think it over.

But you gotta do you, OP. Good luck sir/ma'am

 

[Apollyon]

The line path will get you the GI Bill and possibly Voc Rehab but that won't make up for the years of lost income as an attending.

My cousin spent 5 years as an officer of Marines, and then he did his premed stuff (while on AD) and went to med school. He wouldn't trade it for anything. However, this was 25+ years ago when he went into the USMC. In fact, he went into the US Army Medical Corps, after residency, and conveniently got deployed to the suck.

 

[SeminoleFan3]

Also might. S looking at some prereqs not being valid after that long a time. Would be school-specific but something to consider.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

The adcoms on this site say military service looks great to most schools (LizzyM told me to add 5 points to my LizzyM score). That said, why would you want to go enlisted when you can go officer? Being an officer will get you the same cool experiences (with a few exceptions that really don't outweigh the rest), get leadership experience right off the bat, and you'll get paid way more.

Also, re: prereqs and studying for the MCAT. The major hurdle will be if you are deployed when it comes time to take the MCAT (if it will expire before you apply), retake any prereqs if you need to (which you may not have to), or apply. It is very possible that you may hit your EAOS on deployment, meaning you might have to apply the year after you get out. If you're cool with that, doing a 4 and out is great IMHO. It will also let you know if you like the military enough to stay in as a physician.

 

[schmoob]

The adcoms on this site say military service looks great to most schools (LizzyM told me to add 5 points to my LizzyM score). That said, why would you want to go enlisted when you can go officer? Being an officer will get you the same cool experiences (with a few exceptions that really don't outweigh the rest), get leadership experience right off the bat, and you'll get paid way more.

Also, re: prereqs and studying for the MCAT. The major hurdle will be if you are deployed when it comes time to take the MCAT (if it will expire before you apply), retake any prereqs if you need to (which you may not have to), or apply. It is very possible that you may hit your EAOS on deployment, meaning you might have to apply the year after you get out. If you're cool with that, doing a 4 and out is great IMHO. It will also let you know if you like the military enough to stay in as a physician.

It is very unlikely to hit EAOS on deployment.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

It is very unlikely to hit EAOS on deployment.

Maybe in the Marines. In the surface Navy, if your EAOS is more than a month or two into the deployment, you're going on a cruise. Seen it happen on both of my boats to a lot of people. Your EAOS is your EAOS. If your command wants to leave you behind or extend you, that's one thing, but I've actually seen far fewer people extended until the end of the deployment than flown off in the middle.

 

[schmoob]

Maybe in the Marines. In the surface Navy, if your EAOS is more than a month or two into the deployment, you're going on a cruise. Seen it happen on both of my boats to a lot of people. Your EAOS is your EAOS. If your command wants to leave you behind or extend you, that's one thing, but I've actually seen far fewer people extended until the end of the deployment than flown off in the middle.

It's been years since anyone has been stop-lossed. I've never seen it on my cruises.

 

[jkordsm]

Apply now if you can. Do HPSP or join the National Guard. If you just aren't ready to apply right now and want to do AD (active duty), try to branch med services or something. It would help your application for medical school once the time comes. You would have to retake the MCAT, obviously.