I was considering applying for the HPSP to pay for medical school, but never having been in the service I was interested in getting more information about how the branch of the miltiary you pick affects your future life and schedule.
Say I went through the Navy, did a residency and became a flight surgeon. If I was assigned to a ship, what would I do when the ship came back from its cruise? Would I have a number of months off or would I be assigned to a land-based hospital? If I went through the Navy and wanted to be placed in a land-based hospital would there be opportunities for that?
I’d imagine that in the Air Force you would be assigned to a base? Would you pretty much stay in one place or would you be moved around from location to location like a non-doctor USAF officer would?
Can you take this scholarship and end up in a State National Guard unit instead of being sent all around the country if you prefer a particular geographic region?
What are military pay and benefits like for Doctors?
Thanks in advance for any information you can provide me with.
I’m not a military doc and I don’t believe we have any which post. I’ll answer your question with what experience I do have.
In the Navy you would do a year of internship and if you wanted then you would apply for the flight surgeon billet. This is a GMO tour and you would be on the ship, flying the planes and performing the flight physicals. Your duty station is the ship. When the ship is in port, stateside then you still report to the ship. You can make arrangements to work at a local clinic or hospital but your ship takes precedence. So much so that many health administrators on the ship are very reluctant to let you go.
Actually now would be a good time to let you in on a little something…you are there to serve the needs of the Navy. You will be based at hospitals but the Navy has hospitals world-wide.
The way it will work is you come in after medical school then
intern then
GMO then
residency then
GMO then
attending…
I apologize for the tone of my post. I’m not trying to be a smart alick or anything. It sounds to me you are looking into the HPSP for the wrong reasons. The recruiters will present you with a very rosy picture of military life for physicians. The truth is somewhere in between but mostly it is more “haze grey and underway”.
If your concern is your life within the military some things to consider are:
-How do you handle seperation?
-How does your family handle seperation?
-How much control are you comfortable in passing to the military over your future?
Your specialty will dictate for the most part your deployment schedule. In fields such as emed and surgery (general, ortho & other) you will have alot of deployments. What’s alot? Will let’s just say that being stationed at a hospital in Maryland doesn’t guarantee you aren’t going to go somewhere. It’s a fact of life in the Navy. Deployments happen regardless of what your status is, unless you are a resident but after that it’s wide open.
Regardless of service you will travel from base to base. Sometimes within the continental US but mostly alternating between the US and overseas.
You can not take this and end up in the National Guard. You can end up at a National Guard base but not as a Guard member. You will be active duty and will be subject to move every 3-5 years.
As far a pay and benefits…you get the same benefits as anyone else in the military. 30 days paid leave, medical, dental, vision, dependent care, commissary (grocery store), exchange (shopping mall) and any other of number of things offered on the base your at. To include inexpensive car garages, do it yourself craft shops, pools, gyms, discount trips & tickets…
The pay is comparable if you go into family practise, which the Navy is moving away from. You’re looking at approximately $70k-250k. Broad range but that will be your starting point and the most you could ever make after many years.
My wife is in the hpsp program with the army. We find out in two weeks whether or not she matches with one of the army hospitals. If not she has to scramble for a civilian residency. Anyway, the scholarship is great, but you have to be fully prepared to be deployed for long periods of time, especially if you want to be a surgeon. We think we are ready, but that remains to be seen when the time comes. Her father and grand father were army surgeons and she is more than willing to fulfill her end of the bargain. I think some people join the armed forces/national guard, but don’t expect to actually have to do anything. If you’re a military surgeon, you WILL be deployed at some point.
As far as pay goes, from what i understand, you probably get paid more as a military resident than as a civilian. Mainly because you get paid captain’s pay plus some other incentives along with some of the other perks crooz mentioned. However, as i mentioned earlier, you aren’t guaranteed to get a military residency. This year in the army there are 40 or so surgery applicants and only about 25 slots.
You definitely need to talk to some people in the program and not just the recruiters.
Ripper
Piggy backing off of Ripper…
Not getting a military residency isn’t a bad thing. There is a reason why military matching is so much earlier than civilian. Precisely because if the military member does not match militarily they can try to make a match civilian.
A breakdown of the pay would look like this:
:
$3019 Taxable base pay
-30% Taxes
$2113 Net
$175 BAS (food allowance)
$100 Variable special pay
$208 Board Certified pay
$2006 BAH w/dependents (Bethesda, MD)
$4602 Monthly…
This is for an intern in the Bethesda, MD area. This is rough but a pretty good idea of what you would be looking at.
For specifics on your areas BAH go to https://secureapp2.hqda.pentagon.mil/perdiem/bah.html
This site will give you the pay chart:
http://www.dfas.mil/money/milpay/pay/
Finally, this page gives a good account on one Air Force HPSP experience:
http://lukeballard.tripod.com/HPSP.html
just to add, there have been other threads on this subject if you search for “military.” Or look for posts by tec who is Air Force HPSP at University of Maryland. She’d been in the military prior to med school and has a lot of important things to say about choosing military medicine.
Mary
mom to a Navy officer, grateful to the docs who could treat him or his family at some point
And just to add a little on the navy especially. I admit I don’t know this exactly, since my time in the Navy was driving ships and not medicine. But, the way it works on a carrier is that you are either ship’s company or air department. It’s split about 50/50. If you are ship’s company, you are on the ship all the time, even in port. If you are air crew, you will only be on the ship for pre-deployment work ups and the deployment. When you get back, you return to the air base (Oceana or the like) and are stationed there. The air department brings all it’s own support personnel, so I’d assume the flight surgeon is part of that.
Mary,
Thanks for the kind words. I was watching CNN today and saw a piece on how wounded soldiers and marines are taken care of, from the battlefield to the states. All I could think about was “who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?” And I say that as someone whose spouse is currently in Iraq, so I see it from both sides.
When I left the Army in 2000, I swore I would never go back in the military, but now that I’ve been out in the “real” world for a few years, I realize how much I miss the military environment, being with a group of people who have a common mission and sense of purpose who are not all out to take care of number one. That’s not to say that the military does not face problems that all big organizations face, but I can’t wait to go back full time.
Anyway, I owe some people who have sent me PM’s responses. I’m playing catch up this week now that I am on my Christmas break. I want to give them thoughtful responses.
Have a great holiday 
Tara
- tec Said:
Thanks for the kind words. I was watching CNN today and saw a piece on how wounded soldiers and marines are taken care of, from the battlefield to the states. All I could think about was "who wouldn't want to be a part of that?" And I say that as someone whose spouse is currently in Iraq, so I see it from both sides.
When I left the Army in 2000, I swore I would never go back in the military, but now that I've been out in the "real" world for a few years, I realize how much I miss the military environment, being with a group of people who have a common mission and sense of purpose who are not all out to take care of number one. That's not to say that the military does not face problems that all big organizations face, but I can't wait to go back full time.
Anyway, I owe some people who have sent me PM's responses. I'm playing catch up this week now that I am on my Christmas break. I want to give them thoughtful responses.
Have a great holiday
Tara
(NOTE: I realize this thread is older than dirt)
I registered on these boards to send you a private message, only to find out that I'm not able to do so.
I've been researching military medical school, and I came across your post and your signature. You mention that you're a neurologist, which is exactly what I would like to specialize in.
I'd be greatly interested in picking your brain, if you wouldn't mind donating some of your time. If so, please email me: c DOT r DOT novick @ gmail DOT com
Thanks in advance.
Holy thread resurrection Batman!
That’s gotta be a new record!
How does your family handle seperation?
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