Graduate Medical Education

This chapter provides critical information for choosing, applying to, and optimizing residency within a military medical career. It can help answer key questions regarding differences between civilian residency and military residency during the application process, training, and transitioning to either fellowship or life as an attending military surgeon. While there are additional responsibilities to being a military resident such as military dress and physical readiness, this comes with additional benefits of active-duty service including retirement planning, salary increases, bonuses, insurance coverage, and the additional unique perspective of training to be a military surgeon. After reading this chapter, one should be able to picture not only their day-to-day working environment but also the surrounding lifestyle during these demanding but pivotal years.