non-traditional looking for advice re Caribbean schools

[lincolnite13]

Hi,

I'm a 3rd year graduate student looking to go back to medical school.

I studied Physics for my first degree and am currently reading a PhD in Physics in the UK. I'm American by citizenship.

To give some background, I also read the premed curriculum as an undergrad alongside Physics. But, ultimately the pull of Physics was greater, and I decided for graduate school.

Here is my problem. I took my MCATs in 2013. That score has already / will expire for the vast majority of schools...as I intend to apply this year and matriculate in 2017. I'm drawn to the Caribbean because it's cheap, its location and that it accepts older MCAT scores. Frankly, I won't have the time to prepare for the new MCAT this year while both racing to finish my PhD work and writing my thesis.

Many here advocate against the Caribbean ... citing poor match rates primarily. I personally don't think the quality of education will be worse ... after all, most materials are all online these days anyway. Much like undergrad, my experience looking back is that it doesn't matter where you go, it's what you do while you are there that matters. So, what is the real disadvantage to Caribbean schools?

Cheers in advance for any thoughts and comments

I went to NYU, Honors Program, full scholarship.
Currently at the University of Oxford, full scholarship.
GPA: 3.81
MCAT 30 (2013)

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[22031 Alum]

Are you a Rhodes Scholar?? You know med school isn't going anywhere right? Take your time and do what it takes to go to a US school. In this case it's both where you go and what you do there, and it'd be silly to close doors for yourself just because you're in a rush.

 

[P0ke]

Don't do it. Caribbean schools are for desperate students who have no other options. There is a huge risk of not matching, and their best and brightest students get into family medicine in the middle of nowhere. Your GPA is great, and you have the intelligence to do well on the MCAT if you retake it.

 

[Gurby]

Many here advocate against the Caribbean ... citing poor match rates primarily. I personally don't think the quality of education will be worse ... after all, most materials are all online these days anyway. Much like undergrad, my experience looking back is that it doesn't matter where you go, it's what you do while you are there that matters. So, what is the real disadvantage to Caribbean schools?

Cheers in advance for any thoughts and comments

I went to NYU, Honors Program, full scholarship.
Currently at the University of Oxford, full scholarship.
GPA: 3.81
MCAT 30 (2013)

Impressive that after nearly completing a PhD, you want to base a huge life decision on personal opinions with no evidence to support them.

 

[redferrari]

On the record: Take a year off after finishing the PhD to retake the MCAT. With your pedigree, US allopathic schools should be no problem with a solid MCAT (which it appears won't be a problem). Perhaps use such a year to re-establish residency in a state for application purposes.

Off the record: If you value being at the top of your class go Caribbean. I don't know where your information is coming from, but Caribbean is NOT cheap. Assuming a solid MCAT, many solid US schools would consider making it rain with scholarships. With NYU and Oxford in your background, you're going to need to do a lot of explaining when going for residency (like a written contract with Satan sacrificing your soul if you didn't go Caribbean). You don't need a last resort option, you'll have plenty of options if you do what we say.



TLDR: Take the time to retake the MCAT, even if it means an extra year, and go US allo. Congrats on your accomplishments, they're truly impressive!

 

[piii]

I'm drawn to the Caribbean because it's cheap

Stopped reading after this, knew it was a troll

 

[Imperius]

OP, you answered your own question about why not to go Caribbean - poor match rates. Who cares if it's easy to get in there if you can't match anywhere for residency?

 

[22031 Alum]

OP, you answered your own question about why not to go Caribbean - poor match rates. Who cares if it's easy to get in there if you can't match anywhere for residency?

You're not quite right that Caribbean = "can't match anywhere." Plenty of people match from Caribbean schools every year. The issue is that Caribbean grads, even with stellar performance, will often have to settle for matching in one of a smaller group of specialties in locations or at programs that might not be desirable. While that same performance at a US MD would result in the right to choose from more specialties, to choose specific geographic locations, and so on. I don't think that simply getting a match somewhere is an appropriate goal for most aspiring physicians to have. Least of all someone with a record of performance like the OP's.

 

[Imperius]

You're not quite right that Caribbean = "can't match anywhere." Plenty of people match from Caribbean schools every year. The issue is that Caribbean grads, even with stellar performance, will often have to settle for matching in one of a smaller group of specialties in locations or at programs that might not be desirable. While that same performance at a US MD would result in the right to choose from more specialties, to choose specific geographic locations, and so on. I don't think that simply getting a match somewhere is an appropriate goal for most aspiring physicians to have. Least of all someone with a record of performance like the OP's.

Yea, I was over-generalizing. Somewhere in some specialty isn't what most people go for though, which is the cause behind the Caribbean stigma.

 

[Promethean]

Your otherwise impressive CV will only make people wonder what was so terrible about you that you washed up in the Caribbean instead of going to a real medical school.

It isn't just the poor match rates. It is the attrition. Those schools business plan depends on flunking out most of their students in 1st or 2nd year, so that they don't have to have clinical rotations for them.

I've personally known several promising students who went to the Caribbean for one reason or another, mostly as a short cut, and ended up deeply in debt, with either no degree or a degree that they cannot use.

If you just want the MD as yet another feather in your cap, sure, why not. But if you ever hope to actually practice medicine in the US, why not just take one more year to do it right. Or, even, take the MCAT cold. It is unlikely that you are earning a PhD and won't do well enough on the test to get into at least some US schools.

 

[spiffysteve]

http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Advance-Data-Tables-2016_Final.pdf (see page 7, Table 4)

The quality of the education, which is questionable, is not the issue here at all. It is solely the reported (or discernible) match rate of the the graduates and the underlying (and mostly unreported) attrition rate for matriculants which leads to what I call the success rate. That is, if you start medical school, what are the chances you will get a residency slot. I have discussed this at length is several other threads (links below). Essentially, in US MD schools, 94% of students graduate in 5 years going to 97% in 8 years (accounts for dual degree students). Graduating US MD seniors match into residency at 94% with likely 2%-4% getting SOAP slots. Lets say 97% total get positions. So if you start a US MD school, you have an overall 94% chance of earning your degree and getting a residency slot, thus allowing you to eventually practice medicine and pay your loans back. It should also be noted that about 75% of graduating seniors get into one of their top three ranked choices.

Bloomberg has cited (see link below) that Ross, for example, has about 52% of their students who complete the program and earn a degree. Of these about 85% receive a residency slot. SGU has previously reported about 30% of it graduates go to non-match slots via SOAP, off-cycle, or other mechanisms which essentially means what is ever left open at the end of the match. So if you start Ross, for example, you have an under 45% chance of earning a degree and getting any residency slot. Big risk for several hundred thousands of dollars in loans and less than a 45% chance of practicing medicine.

Additionally, in the table in the link at the top of this post there are some other numbers to be noted that tend to be overlooked: the withdrew and no rank, which are not included of the match/unmatched percentages discussed above (NRMP mixes two totals and two percentage groupings) These are applicants who apply for residency but either withdrew from selection (often for not passing boards) or did not complete the process by submitting a ranking list (often cause they did not get an interview). For the US Seniors, withdrew was 2% and no rank was 0.3%. Adding that to unmatched a total of 7.9% of the applicants who originally applied did not match into a spot. For IMG-US Citizens, if we take all who applied to residency but did not get a slot either by unmatched, withdrew, or no rank, it comes to a whopping 61.5% or nearly 8 times the US percentages.

Just a decade ago, going to the Caribbean was a reasonable path to medicine. Now with the growing number of US-MD graduates and the lack of any real growth in residency slots, squeezes the off-shore grads. With the debt that a student must risk for the losing odds on getting a residency slot, I can no longer recommend off shore schools.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...an-medical-schools-use-federal-funds-loophole
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...pre-med-matriculate-in-the-caribbean.1183556/
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/us-md-for-320k-or-img-for-100k.1130221/
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/good-chance-at-getting-into-st-georges-should-i-do-it-3-4-overall-gpa-3-55-science-gpa.1133776/#post-16443492

 

[deleted731525]

Don't do it. Caribbean schools are for desperate students who have no other options. There is a huge risk of not matching, and their best and brightest students get into family medicine in the middle of nowhere. Your GPA is great, and you have the intelligence to do well on the MCAT if you retake it.

I mean the caribbean is a bad option for OP but the bolded is false. You dont need to exaggerate and make the caribbean option seem worse than it is. The reality of the situation should be enough to prevent most applicants with good stats from applying.