Time Owed
[edit] Breakdown of Time Owed
Current as of June 2011
If the Navy paid for three years of med school, you owe them three years of payback. If they paid for 4, you owe 4. Sounds like you owe 4 years. The GMO tour counts as payback. Intern year doesn't count as payback, but it does count toward promotion and retirement.
Your options as a GMO are to be on a ship as a ship's doctor, go out with the Marines and be their doctor, become a UMO (undersea medical officer) and be a doctor for submariners and SEALs and divers, or be a flight surgeon and be a doctor for pilots, NFOs, and other Naval Aircrew. Whoever you're with, you'll go where they go. Come on, you joined the Navy - we go EVERYWHERE.
When you come back for residency, the time owed starts accruing again if you do a military residency (or an Full-time outservice residency, meaning you're at a casino civilian residency but still on active duty). But you'll get paid full officer pay while in residency. If you get a deferment, that means that you go to the civilian world for residency, then come back. If you do it that way, you'll get paid by the residency program what the other residents make. This could mean a severe pay cut. But you're not building up any time owed to the military.
You don't have to pay back your full commitment prior to going back to residency. So you could do a 1-year GMO tour, then go back to residency, generate more owed time, but then pay back HPSP and residency concurrently.
Once you're a residency-trained physician, you can request duty stations as a specialist, but the needs of the Navy come first. You can go anywhere the Navy goes. Most Navy ERs stateside are staffed by civilian contractors. Especially as an ER or Anesthesia doc, you'll deploy. A lot.
Here's an example of the time owed/payback scenario:
I did HPSP from 2004-2008. I owed 4 years of Naval service. My date of rank as an LT was 08JUN2008. I did surgery internship at Bethesda from 1JUL2008-30JUN2009. I still owed 4 years. I was stashed in the urology department and at the Pentagon from 1JUL2009-22OCT2009. My payback started on 1JUL2009 because I was a fully-licensed physician not in internship. I then continued payback as a flight surgery student in Pensacola from 12NOV2009-27MAY2010, when I got my flight surgeon wings. My payback continued when I reported to VQ-3 as their flight surgeon. My orders are from June 2010 - June 2013 (three year orders). As of 1JUL2013, I will conclude my obligation, and I'm free to leave the service.
If I start residency in 2013, I'd accrue 5 years of obligation during a 5 year residency, and I'd pay back the 5 years of residency with 5 years of service as a staff physician. So I'd be done with my obligated service in 2023. Work another 5 years and retire as a Captain and collect a paycheck to breathe for the rest of my life. And free health insurance.
