Hey Everyone,
Please point my in the right direction if this has already been addressed thoroughly somewhere. I'm having trouble finding some of the basic answers for how Navy GME works, what I need to do to be competitive, if and how I can do visiting rotations at Navy locations, and if that would make any competitive difference in avoiding a GMO. Prior service Army and Air Force, so please forgive my ignorance with Navy lingo.
The following advice is based on the rules when I applied and I won't swear that nothing has changed. Trust but verify.
You will apply for rotations at each Navy hospital for your desired specialty as soon as you know when you can schedule them. Ideally you want them close to (but obviously before) the PDs need to finalize their rank lists for the match. It is important to rotate through at least two Navy programs, and to interview at least by phone with every residency in your desired specialty.
To be competitive for the Internship match you need what any civilian candidate needs: step scores = grades > research > preclinical grades > everything else. The only difference is that at least two of the programs will have seen you work for a month, so if you a very strong or weak candidate in person it can overcome the numbers somewhat more than in the civilian match.
The question of the GMO tour comes up in the Residency match, which happens in December of your Intern year. Unlike the Intern match, the residency match is based on a points system, and whoever has the most points gets to continue on. Most of the points are assigned by the PD you're working for, so its still largely about your stats and your performance during Intern year, but there are non-negotiable points for research and prior service that do sometimes force a PD to keep a less preferred resident. So if you really want to minimize your chances of straight through training max out your research points. Research points are as follows:
4 points: multiple Journal articles in peer reviewed journals
3 points: a single journal article in a peer reviewed journal
2 points: multiple poster presentations or articles in in house student journals
1 point: a single poster presentation or article in an in house student journal
Of course the biggest trick to avoiding a GMO tour is to choose a specialty that sends most of the residency class straight through. So Peds, IM, FM, or Psych. Many of the other specialties only send one person through per class.
