Med School

So, I realized that I haven't mentioned this yet so I will.

I"m looking into the Military's Health Professionals Scholarship Program- where the Army or navy or Air Force pays for your medical school, as well as books, housing, plus a stipend, and in return you do your residency at a military hospital and then work for them for as many years as they paid for you.

It sounds wonderful- the idea of not having to worry about tuition or loans or debt, plus military benefits are wonderful...I just am apprehensive about making a decision to commit to 5 years of service, in 10 years. I don't know what my life is going to be like then, and I don't have enough information about exactly how the paying back time works yet to know for sure if that's what I want to do, or if ther are difference between the branches. So I'm playing phone tag with a Navy recruiter at the moment, hopefully we'll be able to talk soon so I can ask her my list of questions and make some sort of decision. Then hopefully she'll know about the differences between the branches so I don't have to re-go through this whole thing where someone calls me, asks me lots of random questions about myself, such as if I have any unpaid parking tickets, and then gives me another number to call, so i call and they ask me more of the same questions, and says they will send my info along. great. so then i get an email with an attached questionairre, to which i reply, then call the person a couple weeks later, who says he's not the medical person, but here is the medical recruiter. FINALLY! so it's been a bit of a process but hopefully this will be the last step before I actually get to know things. :)

My understanding is that you get all your stuff paid for, then you begin residency at a military hospital. Your residency pays back the years that you were in medical school, and when you finish your residency, you work at a military hospital as an attending, and pay back the years you got paid during your residency. I think. And during med school there is some sort of training you're supposed to do during the summer, but I have no idea what that consists of.

advantages: no $200,000 debt when I graduate

lots of benefits

guaranteed job?

disadvantages:

the U.S. Govt owns you for x amount of years

being deployed? ( i dont even know what the liklihood of this is)

limited specialties?

limited patient base -->limited experience? ( i dont know if this is the case)

limited number of hospitals and therefore locations where I could work

oh yeah, and the fact that i'd be doing thins until i was in my late 30s...i may have a family by then, do i want to make a decision that will affect my family like that now, when i'm 21? it's a big step.

so here are my questions:

what is the pre-residency military training?

what does it consist of? (PT, classroom time, etc?)

which hospitals could i work at?

do they only treat military personell and their families?

do you do student clerkships at your school's hospital?

residency:

chances of getting wanted specialty?

Chances of getting a residency in a military vs a civilian hospital?

what's the call schedule? Or does that depend on the specialty/hospital

is there a residency (specialty) they prefer you do?

What effect does doing a fellowship have on give back time? Does it count as giving back or accruing more time debt?

give back
is there a reserve, or just active duty?

what is the difference, in practice?

What are the major differences between working with the Army, Navy, and Air Force?

so there you have it.