First stop is the academic advisor, and I would contact them now, this summer, to get the discussion started, especially if the academic schedule requires tweaking. There are also POCs listed in the USAFA website link on going the healthcare provider route out of USAFA. Information is power. Again, start the discussion now. Start-up of any new academic year is chaotic enough, so if any actions can be taken this summer, that’s a good thing.
Once settled into the new path, it’s time to deliver top performance in every graded aspect of cadet life, particularly the foundational nursing courses, careful choices of ECAs to enhance and demonstrate consistent interest and desire in this path, while also keeping a balanced approach to other officer paths, should she not be selected for nursing.
In a rough parallel, USNA offers about 13-16 midshipmen a year the opportunity to go medical or dental. As a staff officer on the Commandant’s staff, one of my collateral duties was to sit on the USNA committee evaluating and selecting those candidates each year. Years later, I still remember one candidate, academically strong, a varsity team captain, who minored in Spanish along with his Chemistry major. He took leave periods to volunteer with a non-profit which traveled to Spanish-speaking countries to provide basic medical care to communities in need, and volunteered in the Annapolis area on weekends with a non-profit serving the Hispanic community for children’s health, and in a local ER in urban Baltimore. He also spent his senior summer leave period shadowing residents at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, tracked down the USNA grads there and organized his formal assignment there for 3 weeks. When his application came up before the committee, and then we interviewed him, it took us barely a nanosecond to realize he was all in, and wanted this for all the right reasons, and had explored the messy parts of that career. His USNA GPA was not as high as some candidates, his MCAT was strong but not extraordinary, but he aced the “would I want him to be my doctor” gut feel. There were some who were focused on shiny medical schools and had overlooked the human element and the core concept of caring for people. (The Brigade Medical Officer who sat on the committee always liked to ask if the candidate had volunteered in an ER and seen large amounts of blood and humans in bad shape, which often flummoxed some candidates.) I know this was a long anecdote, but decades later, I remember that young man. I just looked him up. No surprise - he is a specialist at a well-respected healthcare organization in a leadership role, but still seeing patients as well as teaching at the associated university medical school.
She can be one of the handful of nurses if she leans in.
The Health Professions Advisory Committee oversees the cadet application process into military health career fields, like dental and nursing.
www.usafa.edu
But in her defense she just finished her 1st year and is just looking at everything right now. We looked into it and it looks like they take 5-10 in every class. It also looks like they send more to medical school than nursing school-surprising. She is in foreign area studies. I recommended she change her major. Is this a good idea? Like to biology? Anything else she can be doing? Thanks.
