Military doctor recruiting takes wartime hit

A sharp decline in medical students accepting Army and Navy scholarships sparks a new recruiting campaign.

By Myrle Croasdale, AMNews staff. Aug. 28, 2006.

Concerned about racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, Erik Olson, a first-year student at the University of Nevada School of Medicine in Reno, responded to a Navy recruiter's e-mail offering a chance to apply for a scholarship that would pay for his tuition, books, lab fees and medical supplies, as well as give him a stipend of about $1,300 a month.

He received the scholarship, and by accepting it, he has agreed to serve in the Navy one year for each year that the military helps pay for his education.

"Being able to not have to worry about money during school and coming out of school debt free" was the deal-maker for Olson. He said the chance that he could end up deployed into a war zone, like Iraq, wasn't an issue for him.

Olson, though, is among a shrinking pool of medical students choosing to pay for school with the help of the military's Health Professions Scholarship Program. In 2005, the Navy, which also supplies doctors to the Marine Corps, achieved just 56% of its goal to give scholarships to 291 medical students. The Army reached 77% of its goal, falling 70 medical students shy of its target.

Military officials say HPSP is responsible for recruiting 80% to 90% of the physicians in the Army and Navy, and continued low numbers could create a serious shortage of physicians within these military branches. In addition, HPSP graduates, along with graduates from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, supply the bulk of the medical military's leadership.