Is it really that hard for an FMG to match after a five year gen surg residency?

[HEME-ONC]

Is it really that hard for an FMG to match after a five year gen surg residency?

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[droliver]

Is it really that hard for an FMG to match after a five year gen surg residency?

Yes. You will be scrutinized much closer then a US grad & unless your CV is well above average you might be dismissed out of hand during the screening process. This will also apply to D.O. applicants, many ENT applicants, older applicants, OMFS background, any disciplinary record during training, reapplicants to the match, and people applying after 3 or 4 years of Surgery.

The volume of applicants to the SFmatch has been going up 20-30%/year for several years and has made sorting applicants for consideration into much more of a blunt process. We have over 170 applicants who submitted interview requests for 2 positions for 2006.

An applicant as an example with several "strikes" against him who I loved (on paper) included a Romanian who attended school in eastern Europe, trained in Surgery in France (where he was board-certified), repeated medical school at an oseteopathic school in the USA (presumably he couldn't get into an allopathic school) where he excelled, got raving LOR from his training program, and scored 95-99% each year in the ABSITE exam during his residency. This guy is HUNGRY and clearly has it going on despite some of the factors that tend to hurt people in a crowded applicant pool. Now not every FMG can have a story like that, but the point is that you need something that catches their attention to overcome widely-held biases.

 

[Pir8DeacDoc]

I was either told, or read somewhere, that it's harder to match into a fellowship than it is to match right out of med school. If this is true for US grads, then I would assume it to also be true for FMG/IMG's.

 

[Harrie]

I was either told, or read somewhere, that it's harder to match into a fellowship than it is to match right out of med school. If this is true for US grads, then I would assume it to also be true for FMG/IMG's.

Possibly true. But I think that if an FMG came to the US and did well in a good general surgery program, they would have a chance of matching into a plastic surgery fellowship. They still might be at a disadvantage, but I think that the odds would be better for them. Coming out of med school from a foreign medical school into an integrated spot is, in my opinion, about as close to impossible as you can get.

 

[GSresident]

Are you still at Louisville DrOliver? It sounds very tight there.

 

[novacek88]

Of course, you have to be an above average applicant to match surgery. This goes for U.S. M.D.'s as well. The truth is that it is not impossible to match into general surgery if you are an above average applicant provided you are willing to move to any part of the country. Certain programs are FMG and DO friendly and you have to seek those programs out. Also, look at the match list of DO and FMG schools to locate which programs those are. General surgery isn't as popular as it was because of the lifestyle and malpractice issues it faces. Also the prestige associated with surgery has fallen in favor of lifestyle fields like radiology. You have to take everyone's advice with a grain of salt. A surgery resident at a program that is hostile towards DO's and FMG's will naturally assume that most programs in the country is like his or hers. That's not the reality. At AZCOM, those who wanted to do surgery didn't have a problem matching in a program somewhere. They might have had to go to BFE but they still found a place that took them.