Air Force Family Medicine GME

Where to Start?

The thought of now being a 4th year and preparing for residency is a daunting one. Knowing where you want to end up may be easy, but figuring out how to get there may prove to be a little more difficult. Here are a few pearls on where to begin.

In the Air Force there are currently 6 Family Medicine Residency (FMR) programs as of 1 Oct 2019. That number may fluctuate in the coming years, but what you need to figure out right now as a 3rd year medical student is which 2 of the 6 FMRs are your top choices. Those two top choices will ideally be the places you go for your away/audition/sub-I (ADT) rotations. 

No matter where you go you will hear this same saying that "you'll get good residency training at any of the 6 locations". That said, they are all very different programs with their own unique flavors. Figuring out how to differentiate the programs will be key in figuring how where you will be rotating and how you will be ranking them.

In a very brief nutshell: Travis is in NorCal. Nellis is in the Southwest (Las Vegas) and is a great location for those who enjoy the outdoors. The program at Nellis is said to have developed from Eglin, which is right by the beach in Florida. Scott ("St. Louis") and Offutt ("Omaha") are both very similar family friendly Midwest programs that cater to applicants with similar interests. Both Scott and Offutt are also the only two combined military-civilian programs. Ft Belvoir is in Virginia and is the only tri-service Family Medicine residency. 

For information on Operational Family Medicine Residency, please email: usafsam.op.med@us.af.mil 

How many programs can I rotate at?

Technically it is possible to rotate at every base by scheduling Non-ADTs, but that becomes costly and most students stick to the two funded ADTs. Again, this means you need to figure out where your top two choices and schedule/set-up a rotation there. 

How do I set-up these ADT rotations?

Good question. Each program has their own Medical Student Coordinator. You can find their contact information on the individual pages throughout this website, through AFIT on the clerkship coordinators page, or on the USAFP website. Another place to find the contact info for these programs is on the annual Air Force Family Medicine Teleconference slideshow, which can be found on the AF HPSP Facebook group or the Air Force Physician Education Branch website. While going through all these webpages you may notice the contact info may be listed a little bit differently. That's because the people in these positions are usually in flux as they rotate in and out so updating all these pages with the proper changes takes some time. Generally we will try and do a good job of keeping the most updated contact information here. 

Start reaching out to these programs around November/December-ish asking if you can set up a 4th year ADT rotation there. The individual programs you apply to will send you some forms you will have to fill out specifically for their base. From there, the Medical Student Coordinator will forward your request to AFIT. It may take a few weeks for AFIT to get back to you, but they will be the ones who officiate your ADT. When it is all said and done, both the FMR and AFIT will send you confirmation emails with the dates you have requested.

Residency stuff

A couple of important dates to take note of:

Note: These dates may slightly vary from year to year. Please refer to the official application checklist on the Air Force Physician Education Branch website here for the exact dates.

Other pearls

Work on your CV and Personal Statements as soon as you can. Get those really polished. Some programs may ask you to submit those when you request/apply to rotate through their program. Others might ask for them right around the time you head to their base for an ADT. In any case, having both of those well refined in advance will only help make things easier for you.


For more information regarding ADTs, you can check out the FAQs page.