Another thing for OP to consider:
When I was considering HPSP, I talked to some military docs who mentioned that as they progressed in rank and career, their duties became more and more administrative and less direct patient care. Now that I am through with my training, I find that because attrition is so high, that shift into admin is happening earlier and earlier.
I, and others in my cohort, am now taking on far more admin than I ever expected in my first duty assignment immediately out of training. You aren't given the "few years to hone your clinical skills" that people talked about in the past. Within 3 weeks of arriving at my duty station, I was made chief of my clinic and made head of two separate hospital-wide committees. I am considered only 55% clinical at this point, and that number might go down even further. It's a lot of desk work, attending meetings, and creating slide decks. Out of that 55% clinical, probably half of those patient encounters are "at the top of my training" -- I'm seeing far more primary specialty than I would like to and far less subspecialty than I feel that I need in order to secure clinical skills that I extended my ADSO to obtain.
