If I wasn’t able to enter medical school until age 43 and had 4 prior years of service as an officer how could I (or would I be able to) pull this off? What are my options?
Is it a matter of “taking time off” from active duty to attend school? If so, how would that work? From my understanding (please correct me if I am wrong), I wouldn’t be able to attend Uniformed Services University. But would I be able to apply to a D.O./M.D. school and go there and re-enter active duty?
I’m totally confused right now and could really use some help.
You would re-enter AD at age 47 to 51 based on whether or not you do a military versus civilian residency (their choice). You may have to sign a waiver stating that you wouldn’t be able to retire by 62 (what that means for money, I don’t know).
You would also re-enter with an adjusted pay date and date of rank (as well as other various dates they track). They try to make up for the fact that physicians require several years to train and to make you equal to your peers. For example, with four years prior service, you would have 10-12 years service for pay purposes (2 of your 4 prior years as you only get half credit, also half of any reserve time including IRR, 4 years for med school and however many years residency is). The first 10 years of that calculation is used to determine your re-entry grade as an O4. Then each day above the 10 years is credited towards your date of rank.
As an aside, I would recommend you consider USUHS. I have met several of their graduates as residents, and several of them are prior service. You would get those four years towards retirement when you actually retire.
I was in a similar situation when I re-entered active duty this summer and had to figure out where all of these dates came from in my personnel file.
I know this was a lot. Let me know what questions you have and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Glad to see you are on the military path again. I was active duty in my prior life and plan on going the Reserve option if it all works out.
Best wishes on your journey.