u/Low-Hotel-8977

Hi all,

Spoke with a recruiter recently. My long term goal is to join the NG and serve as a field surgeon and/or flight surgeon as an attending. I am an M4 currently and I figured my more flexible fourth year schedule might allow me to join, but from what I heard it looks like this might be something I'll have to push off until late residency or after residency.

I heard I'd need to do a 3 week officer commissioning class, self paced online BOLIC course, then 3 weeks in person BOLIC, which is probably more time than I can afford as an M4, and certainly more time than I can afford as an early resident. I thought I had seen people join in M4/residency but the recruiter did say there is a new policy that you have to get all of the above done within 18 months of joining which makes that kind of thing difficult.

So I am now leaning towards just joining near the end of residency or as an early attending. But thought I would ask here just in case anyone knows of a work-around. Eager to join but need to do what's practical. To clarify this was army NG, not sure if air NG is different.

Thank you!

I am looking for a group to go backpacking in Alaska sometime next year, likely around April-June. I don’t have friends at the moment with the same desire to do something like that.

I’ve been doing a lot of smaller mountain hiking and will be climbing some larger ones this year, and have experience with 1-2 week backpacking trips. Anyone who is potentially interested let me know and we can connect.

I’m an M4 with an application all set for adult neuro. Clinically, neuro chief concerns are my favorite, especially gen Neuro. I love going down rabbit holes trying to figure out what’s going on with the patient. Gen inpatient Neuro is my fav service in the hospital by far. I like stroke less.

I also have very strong interest in biotech/translational research/basic science and feel Neuro lends itself uniquely well for that. Have experience working on brain computer interfaces and certain other niche neuro related technologies and want to continue that as an attending.

However, I’m also kind of an adventurous person and have loved every rotation in medical school. There’s another side of me, if I could drop all the research/scientific interests that would love to do FM, see all ages, handle anything, work in an ER on occasion, etc etc. Loved peds, psych, IM, EM, even trauma surg where I got comfortable with lac repairs and some other procedures. I want to be a doc that can handle it all and be as broadly trained as possible, but I guess I’ve compromised on this interest because I like Neuro a lot and I feel FM would not lend itself well to my scientific ambitions.

I’ve sort of settled on doing Adult neuro and then joining the national guard as a physician, where I’d act as a sort of primary care for a unit, and just trying to retain a broad medical knowledge and learn as much on intern year as possible.

But before I send in ERAS and seal my fate, I figured I’d ask you all if anyone has any other thoughts or ideas!

26M, no mountaineering experience, been doing a ton of hiking in the Adirondacks for the last 6 months or so. Would like to try the next step up. Anyone else in a similar boat would love to partner up and tackle this together, or anyone more experienced that wouldn’t mind having me tag along would be great too! Ideally first week in August but can be flexible through August/September.