the reality is, from a patient's point of view. MD still trumps DO ( no offense to our DO colleagues)
so a Carribean MD won't have to spend 2-4 minutes of his time explaining to the patient how a DO is equivalent to an MD as long as both of them did the same residency.
my colleague is a DO and a good friend..
he tells me why he prefers using Dr. John Smith vs John Smith, D.O. on his lab coat.
one of his "favorite stories" post IM residency, while practicing as a hospitalist is that, the patient asked him... " so when will we see the doctor?"
This is really quite regional. I've almost never seen it in my area, but I'm also in a state with the 2nd oldest DO school and that has one of the largest DO:MD ratios in the country. That said, I've heard stories, primarily from people out west that are similar to what you describe. It is definitely NOT something that you have to explain with every patient, regardless of region, but I suppose if it was a daily or even weekly occurrence, it would be annoying.
Also, what would you talk about for 2-4 min? Its more like 30 sec to maybe 1 min.
I agree that it sucks for that dude, but instead of whining, there are other things he could do if being an orthopod is really THE ONLY thing he would be happy doing. He could've just gone to a US med school and literally start over. To my knowledge, that's not against the rules, and it's not much, if any worse than what some people do to get into med school, period. Some people take a graduate degree and reapply, some people get another undergrad degree and reapply. I even read about this one guy who wanted it so bad, he actually got his Ph.D. so that the interviewers would have to call him doctor and reapplied. I mean, it was probably a pretty accurate take on Caribbean med schools, but if his grades and med school application were really all that, he was kind of an idiot for giving up on US schools so easily. I've lived in some AWFUL places in Florida (I once accidentally rented a room from a guy whose house was in a nudist residential community, and that dude HAD to weigh 500 lbs. I made it 2 weeks before I just told him to keep my deposit and rent and left. I also once rented a garage that had been turned into an outdoor room. Had to go inside to take a shower or use the bathroom.) I guess my point is, and maybe it IS just because I'm old, but this guy just seemed sort of like a tool to me. Like a person who is used to having it fairly easy. It could very well be that, because I also thought the wizard of the wards wrote atrociously, and she supposedly has an undergrad degree in English. I really do rue the day someone decided everyone was special and needed to be made to feel special, and everyone deserved to graduate from high school (I remember a time when people actually just eventually flunked out), and everyone NEEDS to go to college. *sigh*
Agree that there is more he could do, but I find it very unlikely he'd be able to repeat med school in the US. He absolutely would not be able to repeat at a US MD school, he's already taken the steps and already looked into this as described in his blog. He would also have a
very hard time getting into a DO school given his attendance of a Carib school. Not impossible, but certainly not easy.
Something tells me a much bigger factor had to do with his SO relationship and wanting/needing to be home. That simply became a bigger importance to him after spending essentially the last 4 years either on a foreign island or as a nomad.
I think the point of his posts was more that he was taken in by the rhetoric that those schools use ("Harvard of the Caribbean"), and unfortunately for him, HE was naive enough to take them at their word and invest a quarter of million based on it. This is one of the reasons why its always better to stay in the US than trust these for-profit foreign med schools.
On a personal note, when I applied, I applied late, but I also applied very broadly including to 2 Carib schools, and even interviewed "at" both. My SGU interview has eerily similar to this guy's. The guy flat out told me that virtually everyone gets the residency they want. Fortunately, I'm more of a worst case scenario type of person and I'd already looked at the facts, and even more fortunately I didn't have to worry about it in the end.
most of them have 99 on their step 1 and 2 ( so > 240ish) hence the 99ers, especially those from India.
but wait there's more, they have tons of publications and done with residency/fellowship.
and we think that doesn't mean much here...but no.
an intern here ( who is a practicing cardiologist in his/her country) can read "that" EKG more accurately than me on day 1.
This is simply inaccurate.
Some have those things. The ones that have those things are the ones you see getting a residency (obviously not all of them), and/or they've made connections with programs. You may have a skewed view because your interaction seems to be limited to your hospital, but being from a family with numerous relatives and family friends that were/are in that exact situation and being a member of a community with a relatively large percentage of foreign physicians, I can assure you that this is not the majority.
Your exposure seems to be to the successful ones, while I know plenty with what would be considered average to even slightly above average apps that are on their 3rd or 4th cycle applying, or have even just given up.
