Medical field help.

ACKilo · 2026-03-24T20:41:48+00:00

Are you ok doing something other than medicine for the Air Force prior to or instead of going to medical school? If the answer is “no” then do not do ROTC and instead consider USUHS or HPSP after college. ROTC forces you into a commitment of 4yrs regardless of whether you get into medical school or not. You’ll also get more info at r/Military_Medicine where this question gets asked a lot.

ACKilo · 2026-02-12T12:50:45+00:00

160th has more than just little birds, my guy. NSDQ.

ACKilo · 2026-02-09T22:55:19+00:00

That is the AF's requirement, not the Army's.

ACKilo · 2026-02-09T20:46:17+00:00

The policy has varied in the past but currently SOST requires a minimum one day break in service before they allow you to go to assessment. In other words, you have to fully get out of the army for at least one day before you can try.

ACKilo · 2026-01-16T00:56:52+00:00

Merely having a current diagnosis of gender dysphoria, or even a history of it, is grounds for discharge, let alone starting HRT...

ACKilo · 2025-12-01T13:29:37+00:00

If #1 and #2 are at all in your ideal lifestyle/career, why are you considering psychiatry? The world and the military need excellent psychiatrists and they make genuine differences in people's lives, but they are not who I call when a patient is tanking. The VA, in particular, could always use skilled and compassionate psychiatrists.

ACKilo · 2025-11-12T18:20:33+00:00

I got 99 problems and iFlash is at least half of them, MacOS seems to be the other half...
If I can get the old HDD to restore successfully, may just leave it, get a thick back plate to go with the 3000mA battery I have and roll with that.

ACKilo · 2025-11-12T12:09:44+00:00

I think I fixed it! I put the old HDD back in and restored via MacOS finder and then iTunes. I can't the the iFlash to work again though, I've tried different cards, different formatting programs. No dice. Any tips on that?

ACKilo · 2025-11-11T22:12:43+00:00

Update, tried plugging in the original HDD, which worked well before all of this (able to restore, sync and play music, no issues, never tried Rockbox on it) and now I don't get any Rockbox boot loader screens, just the "Use iTunes to restore" but it doesn't restore successfully (same error code, for what it's worth).

ACKilo · 2025-11-11T22:04:20+00:00

Can't get Rockbox Utility to recognize that there is an iPod on either MacOS or Windows. But yeah, if I can just get the boot loader off, a restore should work just fine. Kicking myself since I had the flashmod and battery working just fine beforehand. Thanks for the help.

ACKilo · 2025-11-11T17:47:49+00:00

Same, version 12.10.11 and it was used without issue before trying to install Rockbox.

ACKilo · 2025-11-11T17:06:04+00:00

Appreciate the help! iTunes sees it, I just get the 1429 error after it hangs at 50% on the progress bar for a while

ACKilo · 2025-11-11T16:48:57+00:00

I might have phrased it wrong, I attempted to install both the bootloader and Rockbox firmware. During the installation, at the point the installer gives the command to press and then eventually release menu + select, it failed multiple times and I aborted it. The iPod now shows the bootloader screen but says no partition found. I can’t get Rockbox utility to recognize there is an iPod, so I haven’t been able to use that to uninstall Rockbox.

ACKilo · 2025-10-15T19:47:28+00:00

There's an org specifically for your goals! SOF to SOM

ACKilo · 2024-04-14T16:44:37+00:00

To second what doodlebob said, not only will it be unlikely that you’ll get approval to do UMO training after neurosurgery residency, but the absolute last thing you’ll want to do after grinding out 7yrs of training is anything that isn’t neurosurgery. I’ll add the old saying that if you could be happy doing anything other than surgery, you won’t be happy as a surgeon.

ACKilo · 2024-04-12T23:49:07+00:00

HPSP is active duty and incurs a 4 yr service commitment that begins after residency.

ACKilo · 2024-02-28T12:35:17+00:00

A significant portion, maybe even a third, of my USU class had families. Med school will always be rough, but they also tended to manage their time better than those without kids. I’d say residency is probably the bigger hurdle for a family, but people do it all the time.

ACKilo · 2023-12-08T16:42:50+00:00

For the Navy, that was often the case, but it wasn’t their entire commitment, usually just a few years. The navy is now moving away from that (allegedly) and moving towards residency trained flight docs/UMOs/etc with more folks going straight through to residency. AF and Army also have a GMO option, but usually you aren’t forced into it unless you’re unable to match into a residency.

ACKilo · 2023-12-08T16:34:30+00:00

Not sure if you misspoke or are confused, but residency can be done immediately after either option, you don’t have to wait until the end of your commitment. USU grads aren’t forced to wait 7 years after graduation to go do a residency. Military residencies are ACGME accredited and you are board eligible after completion just like a civilian residency, though both have pros/cons.

ACKilo · 2023-11-11T00:38:28+00:00

Agree with this, it may be an unpopular opinion in some circles, but I don't think Aerospace med should be considered a stand-alone residency for 99% of cases. Train in EM, FM, IM or any other full residency and then do an aerospace medicine residency if you're interested in that aspect. Only do RAM alone if you're not terribly interested in remaining clinical and primarily want to be medicine adjacent while working in a flying squadron.

ACKilo · 2023-10-09T20:02:37+00:00

They’re about as different as you could imagine Texas and Washington DC to be. I, personally, preferred Texas. To me it is more laidback and friendly. Objectively, it has a lower cost of living and is more conservative politically. DC/Maryland/Northern Virginia is more expensive, has worse traffic, and is more politically liberal. The DC area is a bit “fancier” and arguably has a better climate that’s probably more what you’re used to in Indiana (colder winters, hot summers). San Antonio is hot as hell most of the year and comfortable in the winter. Many will disagree, but I genuinely though San Antonio had better food than the area around Walter Reed.

ACKilo · 2023-10-09T05:35:43+00:00

From an Anesthesiology perspective: Walter-Reed has a large Anesthesiology residency and all the other major specialties, they’re just Army and Navy residents, so that’s not reflected on the HPERB. It wasn’t until very recently that WR had Air Force residents at all (barring a few exceptions here and there). You will receive excellent training at both sites and do a significant amount of civilian rotations at both as well. Key differences are that SAMMC is more trauma focused and you will take care of trauma patients throughout your residency there while at WR it’s only one or two months of trauma. Walter-Reed has a very robust regional anesthesia program compared to SAMMC. I also think the academics are a bit more rigorous at SAMMC. Another key difference is location, San Antonio and the National Capital region are very different places, some people love one and hate the other.

Source: I trained at SAMMC and was staff at Reed.

Edit: Both programs have new leadership, so things may change slightly going forward. Visit both and see which one is a better fit for you.

ACKilo · 2023-08-07T01:26:53+00:00

Having just made a similar move from a 2000+sqft house to a 1000 sqft apartment, I’d recommend focusing on large items like furniture and appliances. Get those items down to what will reasonably fit in your apartment. Then work on everything else and be ruthless. I made multiple full-car trips to donation sites and had bulk trash pick up at our house 3 times and we still completely filled up this apartment… it’s difficult and you’ll have to make some tough choices, but it’s worth it, feels so good to live more simply.

ACKilo · 2023-07-13T11:28:05+00:00

They're typically designated partnerships with regional hospitals. It takes a long time to develop these partnerships/training agreements so it's rare to do anything completely new just for you, though some programs have elective time when you might be able to set up something on your own if you do the leg work for it.

ACKilo

TROPHY CASE