This one I need to research. My gut instinct tells me you're right: the doctors drafted to work in Korea came in as Captains (instead of as Lieutenants) for precisely this reason: their MDs. But that was wartime, the draft, and the Army, of course.

Since we see Janet enter the SGC as a Captain, yet she's obviously somebody with enough mojo to be the CMO of a top sekrit MajCom facility, my guess is that she was Out and in civilian life and the USAF pulled her back in for the SGC. They'd have the option of doing so at the rank of her separation (like Jack, the eternal Colonel).

This would fit in with what little we have on her background from "Hathor" -- divorced and entered the Air Force after her divorce. We can presume therefore that the USAF may well have paid for medical school.

Yeah okay, rambling. I'll do some research on that Captaincy thing and get back to you...

That is EXACTly what I thought regarding her mojo. I have an idea (which you'll see appear in a story soon) and want to make sure that it fits in with reality as much as possible.

I know that in the past, they had a deal where - in exchange for paying part of medical school, you had to intern for a period of time. I know it existed for some medically-based careers in 1996, so I assume it applied to MDs as well.

Without giving away half of my story (g) a large percentage of doctors get divorced by the end of medical school because of the rigors of school. My guess is that may be what happened to her.