Should I do HPSP?

[please.let.me.in]

Hello Everyone,

I just found this page, and I am frankly a little bit taken aback at what I have seen so far, so I hope that you can give me some clarity before making some pretty big commitments.

I heard about HPSP for medical school like a lot of people do through spam messages after I took the MCAT, and the money definitely caught my eye, so I wanted to learn more. I looked into it, mostly through the resources available on the military websites, but also through conversations with some physicians that went the military route a long time ago, along with a USUHS student I know.

Most of what I heard was very positive from the older physicians. Even though it wasn't all sunshine and roses, they enjoyed their experience in the military and are glad they did it. They mentioned things like working with a great patient population, being part of a nationwide organization and fraternity, having memorable experiences serving at exotic stations like Germany/Japan/Hawaii. They acknowledged drawbacks like knowing that they were not free to make their own choices and that they were moved around frequently (they mentioned that their station preferences were taken into account more often than not). While they had the option to leave after fulfilling their service obligation, these physicians stayed to retirement age because they didn't want to leave.

On this forum, it seems like a lot of this has changed, so I'm hoping for some advice.

Background on me:

• I have obtained the HPSP scholarship with the Air Force and am starting medical school this fall.
• The schools I am looking at will be very pricey. Both out of state private schools. W/o the scholarship, I will be taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans. W/ the scholarship, I will probably be able to buy a cheap house/condo wherever I go to medical school and rent it out when we leave.
• I am married w/ no kids. My wife doesn't have a company/career she is devoted to. She can probably teach math wherever we go until we have kids and she will probably homeschool them.
• Even though I know that going the civilian route could probably put me in a better financial position 10 years after graduation, I would appreciate the security and less stress of no debt before then.
• I do want to serve for the sake of serving my country. I have wanted to be in the military since I was a little kid, and the Air Force Academy was one of the last two schools I chose between for undergrad.
• I am interested in internal medicine or hematology/oncology.*
• I played football and wrestled in college and look forward to the physical aspect of the military. A pipe dream I have would be to go to Army ranger school over a summer to be ranger-qualified.

Here is a rough outline of my gameplan:
Go to medical school on the HPSP scholarship. I want to do genetics-based chronic disease research (cancer/Alzheimer's/etc.). Apply to residencies with preference to military residencies.* Serve my 4-year commitment. Hopefully get stationed somewhere cool for at least part of it.* (By cool, I mean overseas or near a coast. I have had enough of the Midwest for one lifetime.) Finish my commitment. Maybe join a fellowship program in oncology if I feel like I need to at that point (especially if I just did a internal medicine residency). Practice as a civilian. Maybe go into academic medicine and do a 50/50 split clinical/research.

*I know that my goals can change while I am in medical school, but I don't see myself going into surgery (which most people on this board seem to say is the worst specialty to go into the military with).
*It seems more likely that someone in internal medicine could be stationed overseas than someone in heme/onc. How likely would that be for either?
*I have a pretty big question that my recruiter can't seem to answer: where are the Air Force Residencies? I have a map that an Army recruiter emailed to me that showed Air Force residency locations in Sacramento, Ohio, San Antonio, or Bethesda, but the Air Force Website only talks about Sacramento. And, could I do residencies in the Army or Navy on the Air Force HPSP?

Please let me know if I am crazy or if I have glaring misconceptions. My recruiter is next to useless, so I'm not even going to bother asking him to clear up questions I have.

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[please.let.me.in]

Alternatively, could I feasibly graduate from medical school, do an intern year, and pay back my HPSP as a flight surgeon for four years? Then, I would leave the military for a civilian residency and practice immediately afterwards as civilian without the skill atrophy I have seen people talk about?

It sounds like having flight surgeon experience is seen as an advantage for residency apps. Is this track something that the Air Force would allow me to do, or would they force me to complete residency at some point? Is it possible for a medical student to rank an intern year (with the goal of following it up as a flight surgeon) in the military match, or is it only something that happens if you don't match anywhere?

 

[armytrainingsir]

You should’ve joined the navy if you wanted to be on the coast.

 

[DMBandFan86]

A ranger oncologists in the Air Force. I think that is 100% likely.

I don’t really know what point of this is: you sound like you already took the scholarship. Or are you trying to pass?

Do what you want. If you’re always wanted to join you whole life and don’t care about the pay or uncertainties then go for it. Does it matter what people on here say? Everyone’s experience is vastly different.

BTW: almost everyone says they liked the military after they get out. Doesn’t mean they also hated it the whole time they were in and got out as soon as possible.

 

[DOswag]

Most on this board (myself included) are hesitant to really recommend HPSP. It's good that you have an actual desire to serve. Milmed is a challenging environment to work in. There's much more than just treating active duty patients as a doctor in the military. Lots of admin burden and extra duties expected of you. Pay will be less. Risk of deployment. Have to move every 3-4 years. You have little control over where you're stationed. DHA taking over. It's definitely possible that you could go overseas. I don't know if it's easier as IM vs Hem/Onc for that though. Or you could get stationed right smack in the middle of the midwest. Up to the needs of the military. As far as Air Force Residencies, San Antonio has about every residency program. Wright-patt up in Ohio has quite a few as well. Travis AFB out in CA. There's several others scattered about depending on specialty, like family med has some other options such as Scott AFB in IL, Offutt AFB in nebraska, Eglin AFB in FL. I think it's possible to do residencies in other branches but I wouldn't count on it. We did have an army guy in my Psych residency but I'm not sure how common it is. Yes you can do an intern year and then go civilian and complete residency. It's commonly done with people who don't match to do an intern year and reapply or go the flight med route. You can do that as a plan though, apply for an intern year and then go FS, complete your payback, then complete civ residency.

 

[DOswag]

Or you could just do a civ residency and join guard or reserves to scratch that itch to serve.

 

[please.let.me.in]

A ranger oncologists in the Air Force. I think that is 100% likely.

I don’t really know what point of this is: you sound like you already took the scholarship. Or are you trying to pass?

Do what you want. If you’re always wanted to join you whole life and don’t care about the pay or uncertainties then go for it. Does it matter what people on here say? Everyone’s experience is vastly different.

BTW: almost everyone says they liked the military after they get out. Doesn’t mean they also hated it the whole time they were in and got out as soon as possible.

I completed all the paperwork, but I don't think it'll really be official until I start school and they start paying for things. I was really set on doing it until I found this page a few hours ago and it sounded like I really hadn't heard the whole story before. I had never heard of military doctors, particularly the surgeons, having so little to do that they feel like they are wasting away. That really threw me off.

 

[please.let.me.in]

Could anyone touch on what research opportunities there are within the Air Force? Do they have anyone working, for example, on cancer research (that isn't related to Agent Orange/etc.)? Whatever research is being done, is it likely at the National Health Consortium? This board makes it sound like the military is trending toward scaling down their investments in medicine, would research likely be first on the chopping block?

 

[SirGecko]

Could anyone touch on what research opportunities there are within the Air Force? Do they have anyone working, for example, on cancer research (that isn't related to Agent Orange/etc.)? Whatever research is being done, is it likely at the National Health Consortium? This board makes it sound like the military is trending toward scaling down their investments in medicine, would research likely be first on the chopping block?

Research is mostly something you do on your own time unless you get a job at a few of the actual research institutions that still exist in the military. You usually aren’t going to get any kind of schedule consideration for it. Stuff that can be done in a shorter amount of time and with less resources is more common. The military is probably not the place to be if you want to be a cancer researcher.

Also in regards to you wanting to go overseas: just be aware of what you are asking for there. Overseas billets are not just the same job in a different country. Most overseas hospitals (even the biggest ones) have less assets than the big mtfs in the states. (Often a lot less) You definitely wouldn’t be doing much research and I don’t think many of them have a heme/onc doctor. (I think just Landstuhl, and Tripler if you want to count that as overseas)

 

[orbitsurgMD]

You would be better off staying civilian and finishing your training first. There are cancer research activities in many centers. The Army has affiliations with NCI which has a research center at Ft. Detrick, in Maryland.

 

[DMBandFan86]

So did you sign a contract or just apply and accepted?

 

[please.let.me.in]

So did you sign a contract or just apply and accepted?

I signed a contract a couple weeks ago. They won't start disbursing anything until I start school.

 

[DOswag]

Well it's a little late to ask if you should do it. Buckle up for the next decade plus. Keep your head down and just push forward the time will come to an end and you can go back to the civ side. I'm almost there myself. 27 July can't come fast enough. Or if for some reason you end up loving it, stay in for the 20 and get that pension. It's not all bad. I've met and worked with some great people who embraced the suck like myself. I was fortunate enough that my first duty station was in a place that I for sure would not have lived otherwise if not for the military and it was great. The work still sucked but the location was cool. Good luck!

 

[DMBandFan86]

I signed a contract a couple weeks ago. They won't start disbursing anything until I start school.

Yup sounds like you are already in. Best to live with no regrets. And if you end up not liking it, eventually it will end.

 

[xpert787]

It's tough to know what your challenges will be exactly, they are going to be different from mine and different from all the retired doctors you talked to. Military medicine was very different even 10 years ago, it's constantly changing. Signing up for the military means your going to need to get comfortable with uncertainty and will need to be flexible. You need to get comfortable with unfairness and inequity. Best piece of advice I can give you is make sure the decision makers know who you are, try to make connections and influence your own destiny as best you can. If you sit back and hope the military is going to reward you for being a good athlete, student, human, it's not going to happen.

 

[TheEarDoc]

A ranger oncologists in the Air Force. I think that is 100% likely.

I don’t really know what point of this is: you sound like you already took the scholarship. Or are you trying to pass?

Do what you want. If you’re always wanted to join you whole life and don’t care about the pay or uncertainties then go for it. Does it matter what people on here say? Everyone’s experience is vastly different.

BTW: almost everyone says they liked the military after they get out. Doesn’t mean they also hated it the whole time they were in and got out as soon as possible.

Aye definitely Stockholm Syndrome when you are the military..................

 

[Trajan]

Hello Everyone,

I just found this page, and I am frankly a little bit taken aback at what I have seen so far, so I hope that you can give me some clarity before making some pretty big commitments.

I heard about HPSP for medical school like a lot of people do through spam messages after I took the MCAT, and the money definitely caught my eye, so I wanted to learn more. I looked into it, mostly through the resources available on the military websites, but also through conversations with some physicians that went the military route a long time ago, along with a USUHS student I know.

Most of what I heard was very positive from the older physicians. Even though it wasn't all sunshine and roses, they enjoyed their experience in the military and are glad they did it. They mentioned things like working with a great patient population, being part of a nationwide organization and fraternity, having memorable experiences serving at exotic stations like Germany/Japan/Hawaii. They acknowledged drawbacks like knowing that they were not free to make their own choices and that they were moved around frequently (they mentioned that their station preferences were taken into account more often than not). While they had the option to leave after fulfilling their service obligation, these physicians stayed to retirement age because they didn't want to leave.

On this forum, it seems like a lot of this has changed, so I'm hoping for some advice.

Background on me:

• I have obtained the HPSP scholarship with the Air Force and am starting medical school this fall.
• The schools I am looking at will be very pricey. Both out of state private schools. W/o the scholarship, I will be taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans. W/ the scholarship, I will probably be able to buy a cheap house/condo wherever I go to medical school and rent it out when we leave.
• I am married w/ no kids. My wife doesn't have a company/career she is devoted to. She can probably teach math wherever we go until we have kids and she will probably homeschool them.
• Even though I know that going the civilian route could probably put me in a better financial position 10 years after graduation, I would appreciate the security and less stress of no debt before then.
• I do want to serve for the sake of serving my country. I have wanted to be in the military since I was a little kid, and the Air Force Academy was one of the last two schools I chose between for undergrad.
• I am interested in internal medicine or hematology/oncology.*
• I played football and wrestled in college and look forward to the physical aspect of the military. A pipe dream I have would be to go to Army ranger school over a summer to be ranger-qualified.

Here is a rough outline of my gameplan:
Go to medical school on the HPSP scholarship. I want to do genetics-based chronic disease research (cancer/Alzheimer's/etc.). Apply to residencies with preference to military residencies.* Serve my 4-year commitment. Hopefully get stationed somewhere cool for at least part of it.* (By cool, I mean overseas or near a coast. I have had enough of the Midwest for one lifetime.) Finish my commitment. Maybe join a fellowship program in oncology if I feel like I need to at that point (especially if I just did a internal medicine residency). Practice as a civilian. Maybe go into academic medicine and do a 50/50 split clinical/research.

*I know that my goals can change while I am in medical school, but I don't see myself going into surgery (which most people on this board seem to say is the worst specialty to go into the military with).
*It seems more likely that someone in internal medicine could be stationed overseas than someone in heme/onc. How likely would that be for either?
*I have a pretty big question that my recruiter can't seem to answer: where are the Air Force Residencies? I have a map that an Army recruiter emailed to me that showed Air Force residency locations in Sacramento, Ohio, San Antonio, or Bethesda, but the Air Force Website only talks about Sacramento. And, could I do residencies in the Army or Navy on the Air Force HPSP?

Please let me know if I am crazy or if I have glaring misconceptions. My recruiter is next to useless, so I'm not even going to bother asking him to clear up questions I have.

Don't do it.

The Air Force trains the world's best pilots. It does not train the world's best physicians. Physicians provide a necessary service to the Air Force, but you only need competent professionals to do that. With an interest in "genetics-based chronic disease research," you will be very unsatisfied with training and practice in the Air Force. HPSP worked very well for me 15 years ago, but I was extremely lucky. The only reason to do HPSP today is a strong desire to serve in the military as a physician. If you have that desire, the scholarship is a fantastic benefit. If not, you will likely end up disappointed at best.