Raigon what is your take on the issue of internship spots in Australia? I was accepted at UQ for September 09 but declined the offer because of this uncertainty. It seems that Australia is riskier than the Caribbean if you take that into consideration. If it wasn't for that issue Australia would be a priority of course.
Regarding the internship spots - I'm not sure if you did some research or not, but if you did, you may know that there is a medical tsunami in Australia at the moment. A few years ago, there started to become a shortage of doctors in Australia and they had to rely on overseas trained doctors. So the government responded to this crisis and way too fast. They increased substantially the number of medical students intake. UQ immediately went from 200 to over 500 students. The problem is that the number of senior doctors who overlook internship training cannot keep up with the number of medical graduates and thus cannot offer everyone internship spots. I recognize the problem.
The medical tsunami has hit states like New South Wales and Queensland the hardest, because they're the biggest cities. Victoria, where Melbourne is, will probably be the next hit. HOWEVER, there are also many places in Australia which are not hit by the medical tsunami as hard, because the medical schools there chose to increase the number slow. The senior doctors will slowly increase as the graduates increase slowly and the numbers aren't too bad to handle, thus allowing enough internship spots for all students. I'm talking about Adelaide in South Australia, the ACT (near Australian National University) and North or West Australia. There, from students who've studied there that I know like one of my buddies from New Zealand who went to the University of South Adelaide, told me there was not problem, everyone single international got an internship spot.
It depends on where you go - all countries have their crisis, but there are always areas that avoid the worst of the crisis. Don't choose the big cities just because they're attractive - they have it the worst. Do some research and choose other schools that are just as good, but located in better situations such as Flinders, ANU, etc.
I chose Australia also because I know Australia, perhaps not inside out, but enough to know how to know and handle the good and bad. That's why I'm choosing Flinders: they are one of the top 3 universities along with Sydney and Queensland that have the highest success rate of American students returning to the US and matched to their preferred specialty. Except unlike Sydney and Queensland, Flinders is located in Adelaide, where the Tsunami is not hit as hard.
And also, you know that Queensland is currently opening a New Ochsner program that's partnering with hospitals in Louisiana, right? They spend 2 preclinical years in Australia and 2 years in Louisiana. Their curriculum will be USMLE oriented and they will be allowed to participate in the match. Here is some more information:
www.mededpath.org/
The disadvantages are that it's slightly more expensive (upper 50 to lower 60k) and you're still considered an IMG if you graduate. And it's not accreditted by the Australian medical council (but it passed stage 1, the hardest to pass, and stage 2 is just about to pass, so I wouldn't worry). The plus is that it's like the Caribbean (strong focus on USMLE, and 2 clinical years in the US), only with a better name: Queensland is currently ranked 44 out of the top 100 universities in the world. And plus you get to have a fun international experience in Brisbane while highly increasing your chance with 2 clinical years. I personally dislike Queensland, however, mostly because it's too slack in applicant screening: everyone with an 8-8-8-M on their MCAT or higher got accepted and they have NO interviews after 2008 or 2009, sometime around then. There are too many students, which means more students per every one resource.
But the New Ochsner program will only accept 80~100 students and they must be US citizens or permanent residents, because that who they're for. It's for marketing purposes to tell you the truth, because Australia needs money (damn national debt!) and more important, Queensland wants money.
So here's an option that's just as good as the Caribbean if you want the USMLE preparation and 2 years clinical in the US.
this is a very biased view. i don't know why you want to portray such a gloomy picture.
first you can't say "international schools are better". Better at what? Australia for example is currently the last place I'd go to due to the shortage of internship spots .. I can care less about their fantastic curriculum if i can't even practice medicine after my degree because there is no spot for me and i can't even form my own fate about it (you can't take a standardized test and ace it) other schools can be more expensive and catered for their own countries' medical system. Those options are probably only Ireland. Anything else and you have to learn other languages.
and regarding the rotation issues and the accreditation.. i'm not sure why you are ignoring the fact that this is not an issue at all for the 4 big caribbean schools. With those schools you can do all your core rotations Greenbook no problem.. and probably also all your electives (which you don't need to unless you have a specific reason).. Also they are all accredited in all states and Canada. What's better exposure to the American system and LORs than actually spending two full years in the US?
Also some of those caribbean schools like SGU for examples have very interesting courses in international medicine and the art of being a doctor (you can do a year in UK, some other school has something with Prague).. So it's not really as bad as you folks want to portray it to be.
of course i understand that US schools >>> caribbean schools.. but you are not bringing any real international alternative that doesn't have their own problems
As I said, doing rotations in the US is to get letters of recommendations. Although I do agree 6 months (see post above) is not as good as 2 years, it is sufficient enough (unless you seriously pissed off the faculty for some reason or whatnot), it's enough to get to know the hospital members and workers to like you and offer to write letters of recommendations for you. That's pretty much what the clinical rotations are for - for your references to have a foothold and some link with the US instead of being some blind foreigner who knows nothing about the US health system and comes with nothing with maybe a high USMLE score.
And it's true that international alternatives may not be the best and I know that you should go for the US as much as possible. I, as stated above, am going because I like Australia. To me, they have more good than bad. Caribbean isn't bad, just not as attractive to me as a country I've done some research oo.
Don't choose Australia because I said so. I'm slightly biased towards it because I like it. Choose whatever fits your needs, even if it's the Caribbean route, and as I said, the Caribbean does have its good. The only things I dislike are its slightly bad reputation and the fact that other than clinical years, the best education they offer are in the US and other parts of the world and not on campus. The partnership is pretty good and attractive to many people, but it reminds us that say, SGU does not have those courses of their own and needs to send them to countries that do. Other than that, I'm have no problem with them. I'm choosing the Caribbean as the next possible option if I don't make it to Australia (if I don't make it to Queensland with a 30Q, I shudder to think what my chances are with SGU or SABA or Ross
).
Remember, you know your needs better than everyone else. So find the best program for you and stick to it.
I remember a quote from Randy Pausch in his last lecture, can't remember the exact words, but it's roughly something like, "For everyone person's dream, there will always be a brick wall. But the brick wall isn't to block everyone from attaining their dreams, it's to block out people who don't want it bad enough."
As for us, who really want to become doctors, we can break down the brick walls that's keeping us from becoming a doctor in the United States because we want it bad enough that we can find alternatives if we don't have the US medical school option. It just depends on the route we choose. There is no wrong or right route - just a route that's best suited for us and only us alone.
