Caribbean 2 yrs and USA 2yrs medical schools?

[Lawpy]

@Goro @Lawper @Saifa @Ho0v-man I have the strongest inclination to believe that he didn't apply to DO schools. I also believe it was intentional.

I think we've all missed the true million dollars mistake. Outside of narcissism, a competitive system, and poor decision making what we essentially have is an uneducated buyer that didn't exhaust all their Plan B options. Aren't these the prime candidates?

Mind you this is presuming the reliability of the narrator. Which at this point I think can be questioned.

His disdain for the IM residency makes it clear that he has some issues. " OH, IM soo smart this below me and everyone I work with agrees".
Like anyone ,reading it is going to have e pity on him and just offer him an orthopedic residency. Really shows poor insight and coping skills.

I didn't like the blog because the guy who wrote it is seeking sympathy for his terrible decision making and arrogance. I think blogs like these are terrible sources of information regarding dangers of going Caribbean, but negative information is still useful information, since readers are alerted to avoid being like him in any way.

When I see a Caribbean thread, i don't post blogs but instead refer users to various threads that objectively and thoroughly discuss the perils of Caribbean route. These include the following:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/caribbean-md-or-crna.1191947/#post-17600322

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...to-derm-resident.1198932/page-2#post-17731119

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/do-vs-carib-vs-reapplying-md.1202790/page-4#post-17812863

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[Sardinia]

@Lawper I also think it's extremely telling that St. Scholastica apparently has a "Premium Track Pre-Med" option available only to students who maintain a 3.7 GPA and have a 3.8 GPA on application. This is disgusting and probably formulated the attitude that the OP deserved to be in medical school. Which may be why he ultimately ended up in a Caribbean program because he deserved that M.D. and he wasn't going to settle for any other set of initials on his white coat.

I want to again present the idea of subject based standardized testing by the AAMC. There are enough prometric/testing facilities to administer the MCAT. Surely there are no resource limitations to having students take standardized finals when it comes to Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Biochemistry. The core of the BCP subjects in a BCPM evaluation.

Undergraduate programs will sell "premium" programs, "advanced" programs, "inside" programs, and other ridiculous marketing ideas in order to boost reputation and funding for the department or the school. Because a majority of these programs have run by strong financial incentives when it comes to their undergraduate students and not so much a focus on academic discipline, rigor, and reliability in making sure students are prepared to pursue a career or any career in medicine.

Medical schools themselves are already making profit off SMP programs. An SMP program is just a disguised personal profit model of a standardized testing environment that I aforementioned where schools can reliably evaluate borderline candidates for academic rigor. Standardized testing protects against some forms of rampant financial exploitation that schools will increasingly turn to as this academic bubble begins to cannibalize itself under the pressure of creating exponentially higher expectations of capital.

 

[libertyyne]

@Lawper I also think it's extremely telling that St. Scholastica apparently has a "Premium Track Pre-Med" option available only to students who maintain a 3.7 GPA and have a 3.8 GPA on application. This is disgusting and probably formulated the attitude that the OP deserved to be in medical school. Which may be why he ultimately ended up in a Caribbean program because he deserved that M.D. and he wasn't going to settle for any other set of initials on his white coat.

Joke is on him I have a buddy just finishing up his Ortho residency as a DO.

 

[libertyyne]

I didn't like the blog because the guy who wrote it is seeking sympathy for his terrible decision making and arrogance. I think blogs like these are terrible sources of information regarding dangers of going Caribbean, but negative information is still useful information, since readers are alerted to avoid being like him in any way.

When I see a Caribbean thread, i don't post blogs but instead refer users to various threads that objectively and thoroughly discuss the perils of Caribbean route. These include the following:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/caribbean-md-or-crna.1191947/#post-17600322

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...to-derm-resident.1198932/page-2#post-17731119

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/do-vs-carib-vs-reapplying-md.1202790/page-4#post-17812863

I agree with you. Both sources of information are perceived in different ways. His story provides an actual example, and illicits a visceral response from readers. Some people have difficult understanding data or misinterpret it. This story really hammers it home that even after being an exceptional student at the carribean and with exceptional board scores he couldn't even get an interview at an orthopedic program.

 

[Sardinia]

I think it's extremely telling that we've arrived at a point where an acceptance into a medical school still creates doubt as to whether or not it's the best decision for a student.

This is not exclusive to Caribbean schools. I'm figuring out a response to someone who has an acceptance into a US school, but still has doubts about pursuing the career path. This level of apprehension is possibly a product of informed buyers understanding cost and benefits before they even place a purchase. Or perhaps due to market forces forcing optimal performance even after acceptance into a medical institution in order to obtain a residency and to secure what many see as the mythical "American middle class." Or perhaps the rampant defrauding of students as early as high school has resulted in overall skepticism to the extent that astute buyers even question purchases they initially deem as being adequate.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Joke is on him I have a buddy just finishing up his Ortho residency as a DO.

I worked with a couple DO orthopods. Not sure if they went to ACGME or AOA residencies though. Either way, they are making bank and practicing their specialty.

 

[the argus]

I didn't like the blog because the guy who wrote it is seeking sympathy for his terrible decision making and arrogance. I think blogs like these are terrible sources of information regarding dangers of going Caribbean, but negative information is still useful information, since readers are alerted to avoid being like him in any way.

When I see a Caribbean thread, i don't post blogs but instead refer users to various threads that objectively and thoroughly discuss the perils of Caribbean route. These include the following:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/caribbean-md-or-crna.1191947/#post-17600322

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...to-derm-resident.1198932/page-2#post-17731119

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/do-vs-carib-vs-reapplying-md.1202790/page-4#post-17812863

Yea so the problem with linking to these types of threads from the pre-allo forum is that many of the people that actually know about the topic don't post on the pre-med forums. Most of the posts in these discussions are from premeds, med students, or non-physician middle-aged dudes who have no actual personal experience with the subject.

Even your "objectively and thoroughly discussed" posts that you highlight, especially from gonnif (a non-physician with no actual experience in medical education), are riddled with inaccuracies and statements that are just factually incorrect.

 

[the argus]

I agree with you. Both sources of information are perceived in different ways. His story provides an actual example, and illicits a visceral response from readers. Some people have difficult understanding data or misinterpret it. This story really hammers it home that even after being an exceptional student at the carribean and with exceptional board scores he couldn't even get an interview at an orthopedic program.

As has been mentioned, that guy's biggest problem is that he is an incredible douche. In fact, multiple other people that graduated from SGU that year successfully matched into ortho.

 

[libertyyne]

As has been mentioned, that guy's biggest problem is that he is an incredible douche. In fact, multiple other people that graduated from SGU that year successfully matched into ortho.

Or those sgu students relied upon nepotism to obtain those residencies. That dude however definitely seems like a douche.

 

[LutGholein]

You are probably not on the same plane field with a Carib student if you are from a decent mid tier MD (let say Stony Brook), but if you are attending a bottom 10 US MD school, I believe you are not on a higher ground than students from the BIG 4.

 

[the argus]

Or those sgu students relied upon nepotism to obtain those residencies. That dude however definitely seems like a douche.

That's pure speculation and, no offense, but a perfect example of the type of silly, unsubstantiated comments made by premeds about this topic.

I personally know one person who matched ortho from the Caribbean, and it had nothing to do with nepotism and everything to do with really hard work (and some luck no doubt).

 

[libertyyne]

That's pure speculation and, no offense, but a perfect example of the type of silly, unsubstantiated comments made by premeds about this topic.

I personally know one person who matched ortho from the Caribbean, and it had nothing to do with nepotism and everything to do with really hard work (and some luck no doubt).

I'm sorry how is your anecdote of n=1 better then my anecdote of n=1 where I know a person who matched into gen surgery from the carribean into a program at a hospital where his father works. (His scores were not gen surgery either)

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I'm sorry how is your anecdote of n=1 better then my anecdote of n=1 where I know a person who matched into gen surgery from the carribean into a program at a hospital where his father works. (His scores were not gen surgery either)

I've worked with six orthopods. Not a single one of them was from the Carib. One was a DO. The only Carib grads I've met were in OB. I did work with several other US-IMGs and FMGs who were in general and vascular surgery, but they came from schools in Europe. So in my n=3, they all go into OB.

 

[Lexdiamondz]

That's pure speculation and, no offense, but a perfect example of the type of silly, unsubstantiated comments made by premeds about this topic.

I personally know one person who matched ortho from the Caribbean, and it had nothing to do with nepotism and everything to do with really hard work (and some luck no doubt).

To be totally fair though, when you see someone achieve something that is far, far outside of the norm it's either because 1) they're really talented and hardworking 2) really lucky or 3) have a confounding factor in their favour that other people don't have.

If out of 717 PGY-1 spots in Ortho only 6 went to USIMGs, and IMGs generally have issues getting Ortho PDs to even read their applications, much less interview and rank them, it begs the question what other factors were at play that got those 6 into Ortho residencies.

 

[evilbooyaa]

As has been mentioned, that guy's biggest problem is that he is an incredible douche. In fact, multiple other people that graduated from SGU that year successfully matched into ortho.

Come on, man. If you want to say that it's not literally impossible to get into Ortho as a Carib, then fine. But to say that the main reason that this guy didn't get into Ortho was his personality, and NOT the school that he got his diploma from (in name, at least), that's not really fair.

 

[the argus]

Come on, man. If you want to say that it's not literally impossible to get into Ortho as a Carib, then fine. But to say that the main reason that this guy didn't get into Ortho was his personality, and NOT the school that he got his diploma from (in name, at least), that's not really fair.

I'm very realistic about the match realities coming from the Caribbean. In fact, this is from earlier in this thread,

When I graduated from on of the big Caribbean schools, it was ~70% of people that started in MS1 that went on to match, with the majority in FM, IM, and psych, and modest amounts in things like gen surg, EM, OBGYN, etc. The most competitive specialties (ortho, derm, ophtho, etc) are basically off limits with very few exceptions. Matches are in what are considered low to mid tier programs.

That being said, that idiot's whole blog is about how the Caribbean is a scam. He calls the degree "worthless," etc, and states it is impossible to match ortho (or anything else worthwhile) out of the Caribbean. I was just merely pointing out that 3 people from his school managed to match ortho the year he applied, and a total of 10 US-IMGs match ortho that year. So of course being a Caribbean grad was a major factor, but I'm sure his obvious incredible douchiness didn't help.