Starting HPSP as an MS2? Is that too late?

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Hi there,

I've been trying to decide whether a life in the military is for me or not, and I realized that a lot of the uncertainty is because I don't even know what medicine is like. Granted, MS1 might not give me a full picture either, but at least I will have SOME idea of what's going on.

Is it possible to enter in as an MS2 and owe 3 years of service instead of 4?

I'm also considering FAP...would that be more worth it than a 3 year HPSP at this rate?

Any help is deeply appreciated.

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Is it possible to enter in as an MS2 and owe 3 years of service instead of 4?
Yes

I'm also considering FAP...would that be more worth it than a 3 year HPSP at this rate?
FAP is a great option if you want to stay civilian for Med School and Residency so that you have as much of your own say in your education pathway. Doing HPSP brings you in to the military match pathway. This can come with GMO tours, non-available specialty training spots, etc. Really depends on what your goals and reasons for joining are.
 
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Just understand how the ADSO commitment works through HPSP. If you take a 3 year scholarship and then do a five year residency (for example), you won’t just owe 3 years of service. You’ll owe four.
 
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Just understand how the ADSO commitment works through HPSP. If you take a 3 year scholarship and then do a five year residency (for example), you won’t just owe 3 years of service. You’ll owe four.

Wouldn't I owe 5 at minimum? Since the residency will be 5 years?

At maximum, if I get GMO'd...in this case say I served 2 on a GMO, then matched to a 5 year residency, then I'd come out and do 6, for 8 in total?

Thank you for helping
 
Yes


FAP is a great option if you want to stay civilian for Med School and Residency so that you have as much of your own say in your education pathway. Doing HPSP brings you in to the military match pathway. This can come with GMO tours, non-available specialty training spots, etc. Really depends on what your goals and reasons for joining are.

Thanks for the input,

I'm guessing the downside is FAP probably monetarily becomes a worse deal, since the cash they throw at you in the beginning probably won't be worth as much as the giant amount saved through HPSP.

Not to mention the military "shock" coming from civilian.

If you do FAP, do you apply/get it right after you get your residency?

If you do FAP, can you choose where to be stationed in your contract, or are you now basically at the mercy of the military? For example, could I tell them, hey, I will only sign this FAP contract if I am stationed at Balboa San Diego?
 
Wouldn't I owe 5 at minimum? Since the residency will be 5 years?

At maximum, if I get GMO'd...in this case say I served 2 on a GMO, then matched to a 5 year residency, then I'd come out and do 6, for 8 in total?

Thank you for helping
You would owe 4 years if you did a 5 year residency. (Internship +4).

The monetary benefits of HPSP become more questionable if you end up in a high paying specialty, and if you spend less time in the military (don’t stay in for a pension). Money is a reason to consider HPSP. It isn’t enough of a reason by itself.
If you join the military in any capacity, HPSP, FAP, or as terms of a plea bargain with your judge, you are at the complete mercy of the military. Period.
 
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Also take note, if you take the $20,000 sign on bonus for a 3 year scholarship, you will also owe 4 years instead of 3. Its in the fine print of the contract when you elect to take the sign on bonus. For people doing 4 year scholarships, it doesnt mean anything since you owe 4 years anyway. But for people doing 3 years it does!

This is useful because if you do the 3 year route, it actually works really nice to finish your time off as a GMO (particularly as a flight surgeon or as a dive medical officer). You can do intern year -> 1 year flight or dive school (counts as 1 year of payback)-> 2 year billet as a FS/DMO (completes remaining 2 years of payback) -> get out and go to civilian residencies.
 
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Also take note, if you take the $20,000 sign on bonus for a 3 year scholarship, you will also owe 4 years instead of 3. Its in the fine print of the contract when you elect to take the sign on bonus. For people doing 4 year scholarships, it doesnt mean anything since you owe 4 years anyway. But for people doing 3 years it does!

This is useful because if you do the 3 year route, it actually works really nice to finish your time off as a GMO (particularly as a flight surgeon or as a dive medical officer). You can do intern year -> 1 year flight or dive school (counts as 1 year of payback)-> 2 year billet as a FS/DMO (completes remaining 2 years of payback) -> get out and go to civilian residencies.

That actually sounds like a great plan!!! So
I can basically see how my first year feels,
and then sign up for HPSP if I'm feeling like it is still calling to me.

Do my 1 year school, 2 years of FS/DMO (not sure what these are though specifically, but I'm assuming it's a cool job and I'll get paid so why not?), come back and have the advantage of having lived an awesome
life experience and the honor of serving, which put together with some research and good medical schools performance should get me a decent residency :D

Pretty sure it would at the very least make me stand out among the competition! Especially if everything else is solid (mid ranked M.D school, good scores, etc).

Cons might be years of lost income, but I could see this plan being worth it.

Edit: And avoid at all costs that 20k sign on bonus.
 
FS = Flight Surgeon, DMO = Dive medical officer. Flight surgeons are essentially GMO's for a squadron of Navy or Marine Corps pilots, DMO's are the GMO assigned to the sub community.

Honestly they are both nice gigs, im a flight surgeon so I am kind of biased towards that one.

If you did flight surgery, after intern year you will "stash" in a clinic at your intern-year hospital for a few months before heading to flight school. While stashed you basically just see basic clinic stuff with attending supervision, its super chill. Once at flight school, you dont do anything clinical. You basically get to go to school with pilots for 6-8 months and get to fly, its awesome. Days are from like 8am-3pm Mon-Fri with lots of time off. Flight school is pretty easy, they don't want you to fail and you aren't expected to perform at the level of the actual pilots (except for a few weeks during something call "API" but its not difficult). After that, your 2 year billet consists of you working 2.5 days a week in clinic and the other 2.5 days you spend hanging out with your squadron pilots/flying with them. Its all preventative medicine with the occasional weird thing but there are plenty of people you can always call and ask for help. You get trained to deal with aircraft mishaps which is cool to be a part of. You will likely deploy once during those 2 years (although depends on the billet, you may not deploy at all). During intern year you will make about 75-80k for the year, once you finish intern year your pay goes up to about 100k/year which continues through flight school and your 2 years as a flight surgeon.

And then once you are done you can go off to civilian residency with an awesome life experience and a killer residency app. You can use your GI bill to supplement your civilian residency pay and make about 20k/year in addition to your civilian residency salary.

For people looking for that "military experience" as a doctor, this is the way to do it. Med school gets paid for, make a decent salary for a few years actually on the front lines of the military for a couple years, and then you can go on with residency and the rest of your life as a civilian. Do you lose a few years? Sure, but I guarantee you there are no 65 year old doctors looking back on their life and said "man, i wish i had 3 more years as an attending when I was younger". They are saying things like "man, i wish i had learned how to fly, or do something cooler when i was younger". This is the way to do it.

You don't really have a monetary advantage, but you will break even with your civilian counterparts. For example: lets say you were able to pay for your first year of med school. the other 3 years are about 150k (from military paying for tuition) + 80k from your stipend = 230k value. Intern year is about 75k gained. Flight school + 2 flight surgery years = 300k. Now you can start civilian residency, but you make 20k/year more from GI bill benefits for a standard 3 year residency (lets say 60k is normal salary, so you make 80k/year). Add it all together its about 845k earned over that 10 year period. Now if you were a civilian the whole time, lets say you again were able to pay that first year on your own. You incur 150k debt the next 3 years. you get paid average resident pay (lets say 60k/year) for standard 3 year residency. Now you get your 4 years of attending pay in the same time it takes the military person is at (new attending lets say you make 200k/year), so add 800k. Comes out to 830k. Both are similar, and obviously it will differ for people based on where they go to school and what-not but essentially, the monetary value comes out the same. The whole point is that you won't be ahead of anyone, but you will get a cool life experience and it's not going to set you back monetarily.

And about the 20k bonus, i would double check with your recruiter on that and have them actually show you the fine print (dont just take their word). That was a thing back when I signed on, but it could have changed since then.
 
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Concur, the flight surgeon life if pretty good.
 
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FS = Flight Surgeon, DMO = Dive medical officer. Flight surgeons are essentially GMO's for a squadron of Navy or Marine Corps pilots, DMO's are the GMO assigned to the sub community.

Honestly they are both nice gigs, im a flight surgeon so I am kind of biased towards that one.

If you did flight surgery, after intern year you will "stash" in a clinic at your intern-year hospital for a few months before heading to flight school. While stashed you basically just see basic clinic stuff with attending supervision, its super chill. Once at flight school, you dont do anything clinical. You basically get to go to school with pilots for 6-8 months and get to fly, its awesome. Days are from like 8am-3pm Mon-Fri with lots of time off. Flight school is pretty easy, they don't want you to fail and you aren't expected to perform at the level of the actual pilots (except for a few weeks during something call "API" but its not difficult). After that, your 2 year billet consists of you working 2.5 days a week in clinic and the other 2.5 days you spend hanging out with your squadron pilots/flying with them. Its all preventative medicine with the occasional weird thing but there are plenty of people you can always call and ask for help. You get trained to deal with aircraft mishaps which is cool to be a part of. You will likely deploy once during those 2 years (although depends on the billet, you may not deploy at all). During intern year you will make about 75-80k for the year, once you finish intern year your pay goes up to about 100k/year which continues through flight school and your 2 years as a flight surgeon.

And then once you are done you can go off to civilian residency with an awesome life experience and a killer residency app. You can use your GI bill to supplement your civilian residency pay and make about 20k/year in addition to your civilian residency salary.

For people looking for that "military experience" as a doctor, this is the way to do it. Med school gets paid for, make a decent salary for a few years actually on the front lines of the military for a couple years, and then you can go on with residency and the rest of your life as a civilian. Do you lose a few years? Sure, but I guarantee you there are no 65 year old doctors looking back on their life and said "man, i wish i had 3 more years as an attending when I was younger". They are saying things like "man, i wish i had learned how to fly, or do something cooler when i was younger". This is the way to do it.

You don't really have a monetary advantage, but you will break even with your civilian counterparts. For example: lets say you were able to pay for your first year of med school. the other 3 years are about 150k (from military paying for tuition) + 80k from your stipend = 230k value. Intern year is about 75k gained. Flight school + 2 flight surgery years = 300k. Now you can start civilian residency, but you make 20k/year more from GI bill benefits for a standard 3 year residency (lets say 60k is normal salary, so you make 80k/year). Add it all together its about 845k earned over that 10 year period. Now if you were a civilian the whole time, lets say you again were able to pay that first year on your own. You incur 150k debt the next 3 years. you get paid average resident pay (lets say 60k/year) for standard 3 year residency. Now you get your 4 years of attending pay in the same time it takes the military person is at (new attending lets say you make 200k/year), so add 800k. Comes out to 830k. Both are similar, and obviously it will differ for people based on where they go to school and what-not but essentially, the monetary value comes out the same. The whole point is that you won't be ahead of anyone, but you will get a cool life experience and it's not going to set you back monetarily.

And about the 20k bonus, i would double check with your recruiter on that and have them actually show you the fine print (dont just take their word). That was a thing back when I signed on, but it could have changed since then.

This is AMAZING dude, thank you so much for this response!!!!!!

I am so pumped, wow! I hope I can ask you a few more questions in the future on this, as I get closer.

Again, I super appreciate you going out of your way to give such a detailed response!
 
FS = Flight Surgeon, DMO = Dive medical officer. Flight surgeons are essentially GMO's for a squadron of Navy or Marine Corps pilots, DMO's are the GMO assigned to the sub community.

Honestly they are both nice gigs, im a flight surgeon so I am kind of biased towards that one.

If you did flight surgery, after intern year you will "stash" in a clinic at your intern-year hospital for a few months before heading to flight school. While stashed you basically just see basic clinic stuff with attending supervision, its super chill. Once at flight school, you dont do anything clinical. You basically get to go to school with pilots for 6-8 months and get to fly, its awesome. Days are from like 8am-3pm Mon-Fri with lots of time off. Flight school is pretty easy, they don't want you to fail and you aren't expected to perform at the level of the actual pilots (except for a few weeks during something call "API" but its not difficult). After that, your 2 year billet consists of you working 2.5 days a week in clinic and the other 2.5 days you spend hanging out with your squadron pilots/flying with them. Its all preventative medicine with the occasional weird thing but there are plenty of people you can always call and ask for help. You get trained to deal with aircraft mishaps which is cool to be a part of. You will likely deploy once during those 2 years (although depends on the billet, you may not deploy at all). During intern year you will make about 75-80k for the year, once you finish intern year your pay goes up to about 100k/year which continues through flight school and your 2 years as a flight surgeon.

And then once you are done you can go off to civilian residency with an awesome life experience and a killer residency app. You can use your GI bill to supplement your civilian residency pay and make about 20k/year in addition to your civilian residency salary.

For people looking for that "military experience" as a doctor, this is the way to do it. Med school gets paid for, make a decent salary for a few years actually on the front lines of the military for a couple years, and then you can go on with residency and the rest of your life as a civilian. Do you lose a few years? Sure, but I guarantee you there are no 65 year old doctors looking back on their life and said "man, i wish i had 3 more years as an attending when I was younger". They are saying things like "man, i wish i had learned how to fly, or do something cooler when i was younger". This is the way to do it.

You don't really have a monetary advantage, but you will break even with your civilian counterparts. For example: lets say you were able to pay for your first year of med school. the other 3 years are about 150k (from military paying for tuition) + 80k from your stipend = 230k value. Intern year is about 75k gained. Flight school + 2 flight surgery years = 300k. Now you can start civilian residency, but you make 20k/year more from GI bill benefits for a standard 3 year residency (lets say 60k is normal salary, so you make 80k/year). Add it all together its about 845k earned over that 10 year period. Now if you were a civilian the whole time, lets say you again were able to pay that first year on your own. You incur 150k debt the next 3 years. you get paid average resident pay (lets say 60k/year) for standard 3 year residency. Now you get your 4 years of attending pay in the same time it takes the military person is at (new attending lets say you make 200k/year), so add 800k. Comes out to 830k. Both are similar, and obviously it will differ for people based on where they go to school and what-not but essentially, the monetary value comes out the same. The whole point is that you won't be ahead of anyone, but you will get a cool life experience and it's not going to set you back monetarily.

And about the 20k bonus, i would double check with your recruiter on that and have them actually show you the fine print (dont just take their word). That was a thing back when I signed on, but it could have changed since then.

Awesome post, thanks for taking the time to write this.
 
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