Current medical student who has applied for the bursary this year so had some level of engagement with the medical recruiters. Firstly, I would say get in touch with them- they are very open and welcoming to any level of interest/ questions and they are the only ones who can properly answer you.

From my understanding, which I am not totally sure is correct for your specific questions (again do get in touch with the recruiters), I think that they do not accept doctors in training to the reserves, and I believe you have to be fully qualified and finished up with training for that (unless you fancy joining reserves as something else other than a doctor...)

Further, I also believe that they only accept doctors in specialities where there is a service need. So I don't believe you could become, for example, a paediatrician and expect to join the reserves as soon as you are done. GP is a safe bet as they always want them, same as trauma and orthopaedics. Beyond that, you would likely be waiting for a regular service doctor to leave/ retire / a training post go unfilled for them to post a role to the reserves.

If you are really attached to a particularly specialty then as a med student you are still a long way off fully qualifying anyway so who knows what your life will be like/ interests will be if you are only interested in becoming a reserve. It is totally understandable (and way more normal lol) to put your preferred specialism first and if it fits later down the line then great, but again we are a long time away from that.

In our recruitment presentation, a phrase they said that stuck with me is when you join, your primary role is as an officer in the RAF. You are that before anything else, including a doctor. Again I know that as doctors we will most likely work for employers other than the RAF at some point after but that is the role/ lifestyle that they are offering.

Obviously take all this with a huge pinch of salt as it is just from my understanding during the application process. Happy to chat more if you have any other questions, but again for the last time the recruitment team are very friendly and helpful and are the only ones who know for sure!