vcost

Im curious, are there cadets that attend med school after graduation?

Luigi59

No.

Almost all graduates go to sea for 2 years.

haroldg48

You might want to look at this link: United States Coast Guard Academy - Cadet Life: Advanced Degree Programs

I'm not sure about medical school, but after an initial assignment at sea or in a land based command, many junior officers (lots of whom are Academy graduates) have the opportunity to apply for graduate study at government expense.

Here's a quote from the site: "Every junior officer in the Coast Guard can apply for the opportunity to obtain advanced education at Coast Guard expense. These educational programs generally range from 12-24 months in length and come with an additional service obligation of three months for each month of education for the first year and then a one-for-one after the first year of education received. There is an excellent chance of going to a post-graduate institution of your choice, as long as the university offers the degree program for which you have been selected.

While in school, you continue to receive full pay and benefits - your only job is to study and earn your degree!"

zachogden

i've looked into this recently, and the bottom line is that the Coast Guard will NOT send you to medical school. the CG gets its doctors from USPHS and thus has no incentive to pay for you to get your MD. that being said, there is nothing stopping you from doing your time and then going to med school. a couple of the instructors in the chem section have classmates that have done just that, and i'm taking biology as my senior year elective to leave that option open, among other reasons.

Objee

There are always a couple people in each class, I can think of three in mine, that go to medical school after completing their service obligation. Most are MES (Science) majors at the Academy, and then take a few undergraduate "pre-med" courses while on active duty, but I think you could do it with any major if you're willing to complete extra undergraduate courses while on active duty to make yourself competitive. My classmates ended up and Yale, one of the SUNY schools, and Stanford...so the academic foundation they got at the Academy, and real life experiences while in the Coast Guard, were obviously appreciated/recognized when they applied to medical school.