About once a month I get an email from a dental student or pre-dental student who has read my blog and is interested in the Army HPSP scholarship. That’s great! But almost every single one is asking how they can get out of deploying if they come in the Army.
I’m really getting tired of writing the same emails to these students. So here it is:
IF YOU DONT WANT TO DEPLOY TO A COMBAT ZONE THEN DONT JOIN THE ARMY.
It’s simple. There’s not much more to it than that. Don’t email me asking for ways to get out of deploying.
There’s a lot more to being an Army Dentist than deploying, and many never have to deploy. Deploying or not deploying doesn’t make you a good or bad soldier. But trying to avoid deploying makes you a dirtbag in my book.
The Army is not for everyone and that is okay. But if you take the scholarship and you come in the Army, then you have to accept what risks and responsibilities come along with being an Army Officer.
Army Dentistry 
On a whim I just searched “army dentist blog”. I read a lot of your posts about the army and doing dentistry in the corps and they are spot on. I’ve been in the army for nearly 6 years because I accepted a specialty through them and, aside from residency, the army has been a terrible experience. Yes, I am very grateful for the training I have received and the zero debit load I have, but I question a lot if it was worth my sanity and the life sacrificed in my late 20s to early 30s. The dental corps is the puppet of the medical corps and the medical corps is the puppet to the big army, which has increasingly gotten worse in recent years. There is zero concern for the patient and even less respect for the provider in today’s army. Families are mistreated and morale is at an all time low. I tell everyone I know not to join now. It’s all about being a lethal fighting force…yes, even dentists. It really is a sad state of affairs. I have deployed and done army schools trying to convince myself of the merit in the corps but alas all have fallen flat. It is a corps without a true sense of pride, led by leaders who see all the fallacies and yet try and cover it up…a true sleight of hand. The clinics are understaffed, under funded, under appreciated, and frankly a cesspool of low morale, laziness, and bitterness. Those who stay in are either too afraid, have put in too much time, or are too lazy to get out and try their skills in the private sector. Thus, the army dental corps is led not by the best but the most inefficient and indecisive. Yes there are good people in the corps, and no this is not a bash on them. This is a comment on a terrible system that crushes the soul of a provider, a system i cannot wait to escape in a few years.
Sounds like not much has changed. There aren’t going to be any senior leaders in the Dental Corps in a few years. Sad situation.