What are the chances of being pulled from medical school or residency during times of war?
Slim, but not zero. So far, I have not heard of any medical student in any situation from any branch being called to active duty for the sake of war. Ultimately, medical students do not have any valuable (military) skills; it is only after we become doctors that we run the small (but real) risk of getting called to active duty. During the Gulf War, approximately 40 out of ~750 civilian Army residents were called to active duty. The report I read did not specify what year they were in residency or what specialties they were training in. However, this was a 5% overall risk of being pulled from the program to be completed at a later date. I did not see any data from the Air Force or Navy and couldn’t even estimate what might have happened with these residents. Experienced physicians have told me that the Air Force “doesn’t do that” to their residents, so perhaps none of them were called to duty. During the Gulf War there were over 1,000 Army residents training at Army facilities and only
