Any one considering joining the military to 'help pay for medical school' should seriously look at these numbers and reconsider. If you are joining because you want to serve your country - then that is a different story.

A quick search for physician salaries will reveal a large discrepancy in military physician compensation.

http://www.allied-physicians.com/salary_surveys/physician-salaries.htm

Many who join the military to help pay for medical school aren't accustomed to going into large debt for professional education, but should be reassured that it is not unusual to do so. If you were to take the difference in the military salary and civilian salary and apply it toward your medical school debt for the first few years out, you would quickly have it paid off - not that anyone would do this with the low interest rates being what they are for now.

Military medicine apologists will tell you that there are 'hidden benefits' such as the use of base grocery and department stores which are tax free, medical health care for you and your family, and freedom from worry about medical malpractice.

In truth most physicians do not live on the base and use closer more convenient stores for shopping - making the benefit of marginal savings at the commissary and base exchange nonexistent. Frankly, i find it insulting that this is even considered a benefit at all - it is like telling a civilian doctor that the flowershop in the hospital is part of their benefits package.

As far as the benefit of you and your family recieving medical care in the military medical system, consider a few things: the large disparity in compensation and the threat of deployment have scared away most intelligent capable potential physicians. the result is a pool of less competitive candidates for the military medical school and HPSP scholarships. On average this results in less competent and capable physcians at the end of training. I know this sounds harsh and extremely biased. Unfortunately experience as born it out to be true. further complicating this issue of military physician competence is the lack of fear of malpractice as described below. As a new military doc i was a bit surprised to find a few of my colleagues who, for example, would refuse to let their wives give birth at a military hospital for fear of a bad outcome. My own wife went out of her way to find a means of making sure that our kids could see a civilian pediatrician who took tricare rather than have to recieve care on the base - based off advice from logterm colleages who had prior poor experiences.

While the freedom from malpractice seems appealing, keep in mind that in an environment where there are few repercussions to poor practices, there will be more and greater examples of medical 'misadventure.' I feel much better practicing with appropriate malpractice coverage in an environment where all the other physicians I work with have the same motivations to practice safe competent medicine.

Other financial aspects that are not included in reports that compare civilian to military medicine is retirement savings. most academic center and groups offer some sort or contribution matching for savings. This will go a long way over the course of a career at the physicians level of compensation. The military does not contribute in such a way, further increaing the gap in compensation.

Other reported perks that the military will proffer include time and funds for conferences, CME, etc. In reality these are subject to budget restraints and I have found repeated instances where only a few people in the group have been able to get the benefit due to budget or personell shortfall.

I am frankly surprised that this website purports to not be affiliated with the military and yet does not include some of the realistic information that speaking with any military physician who is not more 'officer' than physician will yield you.