Military/Physician Relationship

[Moops]

Hello all,

I wanted to introduce myself and give a bit of my background before I start rattling off questions.

I met my (hopefully) future wife during her last year of undergrad. I had just been commissioned in the Navy and was about to start flight school. She was leaving in a year to start med school overseas. Didn't expect to fall in love but, well, the heart wants what it wants.

Fast forward six years. We're still together, she is months away from finishing up med school and coming home. I'm at least six years from being able to retire from the Navy, and I have no idea what comes next. I have a basic understanding of the matching process (though I don't really know how it applies to international med school grads); enough to know that she will have very little control over where she ends up for residency. That's if she gets matched. I have no idea what happens then.

So I have a few questions I hope someone can answer.

If she only applies to residencies in coastal cities (specifically those with a Navy presence) how much will she be limiting her options? I'm talking about places like Seattle, San Diego, Norfolk, D.C., etc, where I have more of a chance of being stationed.

What are her career options if she doesn't get matched?

Is it ever possible to transfer to another hospital in the middle of a residency?

For our situation, are kids a virtual impossibility?

I stumbled across this forum just browsing on Tapatalk on my iPhone. It seems like a godsend. But I did tap out this entire post on my phone, so please excuse any typos. Thanks!

--Moops

[MissCrabette]

Welcome! That's a tough situation, and I don't envy you at all.

What is she going into? Is it a competitive specialty? She's already at a disadvantage by being an IMG, so limiting her choices based on location isn't very smart, particularly since some of the places you mentioned are pretty tough to get into as an IMG.

Does she have any US clinical experience? I assume she's completing medical school somewhere in Europe or in Australia, so she won't have the Caribbean stigma attached to her application, but familiarity with the US system would be a huge plus.

Basically what I'm saying is that it can be done, but it depends greatly on what she wants to do now in residency and later in a possible fellowship and on the strength of her application. It's not ideal, but life never is.

Welcome again and stick around.

[PrincessFiona]

Welcome Aboard:

If she only applies to residencies in coastal cities (specifically those with a Navy presence) how much will she be limiting her options? I'm talking about places like Seattle, San Diego, Norfolk, D.C., etc, where I have more of a chance of being stationed. I have very little knowledge about how the military can work with spouses re: matching. We do have some seasoned military med spouses here who can help out. I think for the most part, her match chances dependent on her USMLE scores and recommendations though...

What are her career options if she doesn't get matched? In order to practice clinical medicine, she will need to do a residency.
Is it ever possible to transfer to another hospital in the middle of a residency? It can be, but it is more difficult than switching jobs in a traditional setting.

For our situation, are kids a virtual impossibility? No. It might be difficult until she is finished with training though, especially if you aren't living together. Many of our military med spouses have kids!

[diggitydot]

I have a basic understanding of the matching process (though I don't really know how it applies to international med school grads); enough to know that she will have very little control over where she ends up for residency. That's if she gets matched. I have no idea what happens then.

She controls which programs she ranks and the order in which she ranks them, but not precisely which one she'll end up matching into.

If she only applies to residencies in coastal cities (specifically those with a Navy presence) how much will she be limiting her options? I'm talking about places like Seattle, San Diego, Norfolk, D.C., etc, where I have more of a chance of being stationed.

She'll be limiting herself to whichever programs and specialties are available in their cities. Truthfully, there aren't a lot of west coast residencies.

What are her career options if she doesn't get matched?

As a physician? Not much. Most every physician job requires at least the completion of an intern year.

Is it ever possible to transfer to another hospital in the middle of a residency?

Absolutely, but it should only be as a last resort because it completely fucks over a program's staffing and makes the other residents have more time on-call.

For our situation, are kids a virtual impossibility?

Nothing is impossible, but you may have to get pretty creative.

[diggitydot]

One thing to remember in the med spouse life; nothing is ever ideal, but most everything can be worked with or around.

[peggyfromwastate]

My dh is army. I know that the military does bend rules to keep military couples together (so if she were also navy, that would be to both of your advantage).

Is she a us citizen?

Is she open to joining the navy and being a navy doc?

She would have to match in the residency at a civilian sure most likely then take the military FAP scholarship. I'm not sure if that would lead to the possibility of her getting into a navy residency. Also navy generally sends all the docs out of a flight surg tour for 2 years them they reapply for the residency they want.

So...

If you want to be together, one way would be for her to match at X university in X specialty, then for her to meet the navy recruiter to discuss the FAP program. If she signs on, then shed finish intern year at X school, go for 2 years for flight surgery. These two years would be a time where she could most likely be stationed wherever you were, assuming you were married. The military does try to keep active duty military couples together, and flight surgeons are stationed everywhere. This flight surg tour is also called a GMO tour.

After that, she'd need to reapply for residency regardless-- to a navy program or civilian but usually navy.

Under this ideal (house of cards) scenario, your best bet at starting the fan would be the GMO years. Usually there's much more flexibility during that time than there is during residency for things such as maternity leave.

BUT I am not navy, and we don't actually know Amy couples who have done anything like this. Also I don't know what she wants to go into and that will be a huge factor.

If she really wants something tough, she would probably apply for a transitional year (for medicine programs) or a gen surg internship (for surgery programs).

It's a long long complicated journey.

[Moops]

Wow, thanks for the replies. Lots of good info.

She is a US citizen (and extremely homesick, I might add). She plans on taking a leave of absence just before she finishes school to do a couple of months of clinical rotations at one of the more prestigious schools in the northeast. She has schoolmates who did it and got some really good LORs from the MDs at that school. She also shadowed a pathologist this past summer and got a letter from him as well.

Once she's done, she'll take several months off to study for the step 1 and 2 since she didn't get a chance to take them yet. Hopefully all that time devoted just to studying will payoff with competitive scores.

I think right now general surgery is what interests her most, though she's pretty burned out on medicine altogether. I've been trying to talk her into the Navy, as it seems their collocation program is better than nothing. I'll see if I can get ahold of my old flight surgeon and maybe he can give me some good info.

Thanks for the welcome and all the info.

[corn poffi]

Welcome! No advice for you, except that if she's already burned out on medicine as a student, general surgery might not be the best match...

[L.Jane]

Welcome! No advice for you, except that if she's already burned out on medicine as a student, general surgery might not be the best match...

This. We went into Gen Surg full steam and excited and we are running out of steam at the moment. I can't imagine going in already exhausted. Gen surg is pretty brutal.

Anyway, hello and good luck! Post often. This place is full of great people and advice.

[MrsK]

Welcome. No advise from me but I agree with what CP and L.Jane said about surgery.

[Cinderella]

Welcome to iMSN! I can echo what CP, L.Jane and MrsK say about IMG's having a more difficult time matching for general surgery. IMG's have a 40% chance of matching and in General Surgery the percentage is even lower. Not unlikely and it is possibly more likely for a natural born U.S. citizen to match who is an IMG than say an IMG that is a foreign born medical graduate. However, I wanted to comment on the U.S. military path this NYT article brings up because it's something I also brought up to my husband and you touched on in your comment. Link

I believe you're SO doesn't seem to have the same need as mine does with citizenship. Though what this article brings up is not as important for my husband as he'll be eligible for US citizenship near the end of this year.

The article points out the military's need for recruiting doctors and those with special skills such as multiple language skills say in Arabic. Mine certainly fits this category but I also thought if surgery is your SO's passion then the military may be a real option for that. It's something I also pointed out to my SO as an option in that the NRMP match may be limited in one way, but look here this article points out the military needs you in even more ways, if that makes sense. He's already served his mandatory military service for his country so I don't think it would be that much more of a stretch to do it with our country if he really wanted to pursue surgery as his passion. He's not as inclined though and likely he'd be more needed for his language skills but I still found it interesting as another route for him to take if need be.

I could however be incorrect in my assumptions.

[Moops]

Welcome! No advice for you, except that if she's already burned out on medicine as a student, general surgery might not be the best match...

I'm sure this is true. She's not as stressed out about med school as she is about where she's living. She's homesick, in a culture that she doesn't like, and living in a pretty bad area. The year or so she's gonna take off should allow her to decompress a bit. I hope.

[ladymoreta]

Welcome! You've gotten some great advice - more than I have to offer. So I'll just say glad you're here, and post often!

[reciprocity]

Welcome, always good to have another guy around!

We're currently wrestling with the "is it possible to have kids during residency" question as well, and sadly I have no insight to offer. Plenty of sympathy though...

[Thirteen]

Welcome, always good to have another guy around!

We're currently wrestling with the "is it possible to have kids during residency" question as well, and sadly I have no insight to offer. Plenty of sympathy though...

If you need a reason, you can always mention the people on the Internet who had children during residency and turned out okay.


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