I would hardly call myself the "best informed guy around", but thank you for the compliment... if it wasn't meant as a backhanded tongue-in-cheek one.
My experience and impression is similar to
the argus and what he notes. I was there 2001-2005 and, if anything, Ross has increased it's infrastructure at the school. Yes, they are "for profit" and a business. That is part-and-parcel to the experience. The "product" they are delivering is a medical education. If anything, this has been an evolving trend in "healthcare as a business" which has been increasing exponentially even since I started practice. If that is the fault you find with these schools, then you must equally find fault with the
entire system. If anything, these schools (DeVry, etc.) may even be considered "technology disrupters" and have been leaders in this trend... right, wrong, or indifferent.
My biggest complaint when I was there is that the schools were like the ugly little sister (i.e., so desperate for dates, they would go out with anyone who asked). There were co-students in my (and other) classes who
clearly should never have been there to begin with. And, of course they failed out (and/or were never seen again for whatever reason). I think the schools have tried to address this with MERPs and whatever-else-you-call-it premed programs. (My feelings is why add insult to injury. Why extend the race? You're either going to the Caribbean as a last resort - and you should get in right away - or, you should rethink your entire prospects for a career in medicine. If I had been 'MERP'd', or whatever, I promise you I would be doing something else with my life right now.)
However, the
majority of students who make it off the island(s) end up with a viable career. The "weeding out", if you will, occurs in the pre-clinical phase. If you pass the Steps, get your clerkships done, and graduate, you are likely to find residency. Then, the rest is up to you. This notion that you are "doomed" if you choose this path and will be saddled with lifelong debt is not common. You
will have debt if you go an fail. You can't absolve that debt.
Everyone needs to know that going in.
Other than that, the Caribbean is still a viable pathway that delivers. People who see it as a dead-end fraught with certain disaster are nothing more than fear-mongerers who have some deep-seated, and maybe not even fully self-realized, negative agenda to serve. They see a Caribbean-educated doctor, as I have heard some put it, as a "fake" doctor or "not really a doctor" or whatever. I've worked with enough U.S. medical students, residents, and attending physicians to know that those who survive the Caribbean, and their residency, to go onto to get a license are every bit as competent as the next guy/gal. And, that's all that matters: surviving and thriving.
-Skip