The Berry Plan was a

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

-era program in the United States that allowed physicians to defer obligatory military service until they had completed medical school and residency training. More than 42,000 physicians and surgeons were affected by the Berry Plan, named after Dr. Frank B. Berry, who served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health and Medical Affairs from 1954–1961. The Plan, enacted in 1954, arose out of a proposed "Doctor's Draft," originally met with objections from the

American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's sta ...

, The

Association of American Medical Colleges The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. that was established in 1876. It represents medical school A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an i ...

, and the American Hospital Association, who felt the draft would deprive them of a pool of young men who would staff their hospitals. The Berry Plan offered draftees three choices: entry into the Armed Forces after completing a

medical internship A medical intern is a physician in training who has completed medical school and has a medical degree but does not yet have a license to practice medicine unsupervised. Medical education generally ends with a period of practical training similar ...

, after completing one year of

residency Residency may refer to: * Domicile (law), the act of establishing or maintaining a residence in a given place ** Permanent residency, indefinite residence within a country despite not having citizenship * Residency (medicine), a stage of postgra ...

and returning to their residencies after completion of service, and after completion of a full residency program. The plan did not promise the branch of service or the length of deferral, rather the applicant was relegated to partial or full deferment. The applicant was also told which branch of the military he or she would be allocated. The applicants were not advised that if they signed before age 25 they would be subjected to two years of active reserve duty after they fulfilled the active military commitment. The applicants were titled "obligated volunteers". The Berry Plan ended in 1973, with the last four physicians to complete their education and training entering the armed forces in 1980.

References

Conscription in the United States United States in the Vietnam War {{military-history-stub

See also

References