Military Match and Internship Year

[seaside*bliss]

Can someone please explain to me how this works for Army? TIA!

[DCJenn]

Military match is earlier than the civilian match which is nice. Your SO will need to be applying and interviewing for residency programs at the hospitals. I would recommend that he try to rotate through the military hospitals that offer the residency that he's interested in doing. You need face time with the program directors.

The Army will place applicants in Army residencies first and only in rare occasions (like I can think of exactly zero) do they approve civilian residencies. They would rather make someone a GMO (General Medical Officer) than send them for a civilian residency. (That's why face time is soooo important- you don't want to get stuck doing GMO years and then either having to start the residency which means payback stops OR having to wait until payback is over before starting residency.

There are some pretty competitive slots- Army docs get to play with lots more toys than civilian docs do so the surgical and other toy/gadget residencies get crowded.

He'll need to rank whatever he wants and also whatever he might want. My husband listed his top 3 choices for peds and then two places where he'd consider going as a GMO.

It's a little bit different but the good part is that it's all over by mid-December of M4 year. (they do that so that the people who are released to the civilian matches for the other services are put back into the mix)

Jenn

[seaside*bliss]

Thanks Jenn! Garrett is clueless and really needs to get a move on with knowing when he needs to have stuff done! I am attempting this for him, but there is only so much I can do... Are there any good resources with Army residency info? I *think* there are only 4 spots to do ER for Army- San Antonio, TX, Fort Sam, TX, Tacoma, WA, and Augusta, GA... This is just based on the info from googling though...

[peggyfromwastate]

If he wants to do ER, he needs to move quickly to set up his 4th year rotations at the military training sites. If he wants to apply to a certain program, he should go there for August or September. October is usually too late since most programs have settled on who they are taking by then. Basically, he needs to be tracking down the PD numbers and talking to people now, and getting his slots reserved. He can't just wait b/c all the spots to rotate will be taken up. I remember my DH arranging his 4th year rotations around this time, but it's been a while and he only did ENT.

One thing for him to ask is what to rank in the 5th spot, assuming there are 4 ER spots. The military lets you rank 5 programs. If there are 5 ER residencies available, he should rank all 5. If not, he should rank a transitional year for the leftover spots. He should rank the transitional year for the location where he wants to go.

[MarissaNicole]

Thanks Jenn! Garrett is clueless and really needs to get a move on with knowing when he needs to have stuff done! I am attempting this for him, but there is only so much I can do... Are there any good resources with Army residency info? I *think* there are only 4 spots to do ER for Army- San Antonio, TX, Fort Sam, TX, Tacoma, WA, and Augusta, GA... This is just based on the info from googling though...

This may be a man thing - my husband is always telling me that I will find out things when I need to know them. I ignore him and do some nosing around myself which has been somewhat important because we did need to look into away rotations mid third year so that we could apply at the end of third year. Ex: his school had their meeting about fourth year and fourth year rotations after we had already applied to one or two of his aways!

Although I do admit that some of my needing to know things is not totally necessary... but if I know what is going on with this whole medical thing I definitely feel more comfortable about it!

[DCJenn]

Army training sites for ER are Ft. Sam Houston/BrookeArmy Medical Center- this is in San Antonio and is a dual Air Force/Army training site. He WILL be competing with graduating Air Force students so he definitely needs to get down here for AT LEAST two rotations if at all possible.

My husband said off the top of his head, other programs are Ft. Benning, GA; Ft. Hood, in Killeen, TX; Ft. Lewis, WA.

If he can schedule some rotations during third year then all the better.

He's got to remember that he's competing with all of the other HPSP students and all of USUHS. The USUHS guys have a heads up (Peggy's husband is USUHS as well) because they're already acclimated and have the connections at the ready to schedule rotations. My husband did external rotations for half of third year and all of fourth year.

Face time is critical. and really, all you can do for him is this. He's got to do everything else. And as Peggy said, they only get to list five possibilties so he better be sure he's met each of the PDs for those five!

Jenn

[poky]

my husband is always telling me that I will find out things when I need to know them.

Does he mean things he knows about that he doesn't think you need to know about yet? I don't even KNOW what I'd do if DH ever said that with that meaning, but I know it wouldn't be pretty.

If, on the other hand, he means "I have no idea, but don't worry about it, we'll find out when we need to know", then yeah, that may be a guy thing, though DH is pretty good about humoring me and finding things out that I think we need to know now rather than later. He's had enough experience with things *not* being laid out on time to know it's often worth it.

[MarissaNicole]

Does he mean things he knows about that he doesn't think you need to know about yet? I don't even KNOW what I'd do if DH ever said that with that meaning, but I know it wouldn't be pretty.

If, on the other hand, he means "I have no idea, but don't worry about it, we'll find out when we need to know", then yeah, that may be a guy thing, though DH is pretty good about humoring me and finding things out that I think we need to know now rather than later. He's had enough experience with things *not* being laid out on time to know it's often worth it.

It means #2 - its just that I am not patient enough to wait for him to learn about things from school (I think they are very slow, particularly with match things but I think that is because they produce mostly primary care physicians so I don't think they are ever in a rush or early to prepare their students - Ex 1: the school didn't tell them about applying for sub-Is until April which is when we already had sumbitted one or two applications, because I did some research - but otherwise we wouldn't have known. Ex #2 although we have submitted our residency app, we have no idea when the school will actually get around to uploading his photos, letters of recommendation or anything else).

DH would be in big trouble if he pulled #1 and didn't keep me informed!

[peggyfromwastate]

I asked DH and he said that they set up all their 4th year rotations in the winter of MS3. BUT he was at USUHS and they had lots of info meetings for students and spouses about the process. I'd recommend you find an HPSP in the military who is able to give him advice on when to set up rotations, etc.

Isn't he doing some rotations this year in military training sites? If so, he should take a day off and get over to the ER dept (assuming it's one of the training sites for the ARMY) and try to find a resident who can tell him what's up.