Where are all the caribean failure stories?

[Baller MD]

More than you would think, I don't have the actual number though. And the NRMP report we are referencing is using 2013 data, which I believe was the first year of the all in policy, so many programs were still outside of the match.

For instance, New York Methodist is a community hospital in Park Slope Brooklyn. They're IM program has ~30 spots per year and is completely made up of caribbean grads. This year, 2015, was the first time they actually used the NRMP. So in 2013, that counts for 30 spots just from one program at one hospital.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

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[the argus]

Good luck matching. You will need it (assuming you're a Carib grad).

And I'm being sincere, not sarcastic.

I received >40 interview invites (granted I applied to >100 programs), and went on 25 interviews. So thanks, I'm pretty sure I'll be fine though

 

[Mad Jack]

I received >40 interview invites (granted I applied to >100 programs), and went on 25 interviews. So thanks, I'm pretty sure I'll be fine though

Sounds like you'll be alright.

For the record I have nothing against Carib grads- it is the schools themselves (particularly Ross, less so the other Big 3) and the lack of opportunities that many face that are the reason I am so strongly opposed to them. If there was suddenly an explosion in the number of new residency spots, I'd certainly encourage people to go South for their education. But as the residency crunch approaches, I just don't see it as a viable option moving forward past 2020.

 

[KnuxNole]

To be fair, there are LOTS of FM/IM programs that take people that are all IMGs. These are spots that US grads flock away from, which bring some hope to these peeps, hence the IMG-friendly hospitals that Carib grads use as a positive advantage. You can easily find websites where all the residents are from foreign schools, save the 1-2 US grad peeps. After all, the main goal for them is to match ANYWHERE vs. a US grad's goal of matching in a place they like.

 

[occams_razor]

http://www.2medschool.com/
http://www.4medschool.com/
http://www.6medschool.com/

Here you go

Very sad story. That guy is going to have a tough time paying off all his loans. Those blogs should deter anyone from going the Carib med school route

 

[Wordead]

Stop them for taking the mcat 10 times because they can't get a good score? Not allow a 45 yr old to return to college to fulfill premed reqs?

Retaking the MCAT costs a few hundred bucks and they can study while having a job or whatever. Same with the 45 year old. Much, much different than packing up and moving for 4+ years and 250,000 dollars in debt.

 

[Siggy]

Why do they define matching that way? Is that how the US schools also define matching? Ie let's say a US student soaps into a position, is that counted as not matching on the schools stats?

To be fair, that is the honest definition. It does burn me slightly that my DO school can consider me as "matched" despite "matching" into a TRI and not my preferred specialty. Granted, looking back on my TRI year, that may be a blessing in disguise.

 

[Stagg737]

There are many things wrong with your assessment. I'll point out just 2.

1. Using data from the Ross website and NRMP reports together isn't OK. The Ross website includes people who prematch (i.e. get spots outside the NRMP), and the NRMP reports do not. So that right there is enough to pretty much completely nullify all your calculations.

2. As I have now pointed out at least 3 times, in the NRMP report you are referencing,
"For purposes of this report, match success is defined as a match to the specialty of the applicant’s first-ranked program because that is assumed to be the specialty of choice. Because preliminary programs provide only one or two years of prerequisite training for entry into advanced specialty training, applicants who ranked a preliminary program first are considered not to have a preferred specialty. Lack of match success includes matching to another specialty as well as failure to match at all"

Further, if you continue to read the fine print in the document,
"Overall, 48 percent of U.S. IMGs matched to their preferred specialty"

That means there is a large number of people who actually did match, but for the purposes of this report were counted as unmatched.

1. The entire point of the calculations was to compensate for the differences in their numbers. Sure, some people match outside of the NRMP, but they are paid for by the schools. There's a reason that 30 Carib graduates all went to the same place for residency outside the NRMP, and it's not because Ross or wherever had an amazing reputation ($$$).

2. Let's assume that those are the stats for preferred specialty. 48% is still a joke, especially when people in the Carib should know their shot at going into any highly competitive field is basically zero and their odds in moderately competitive fields are low. So you're going to pay 50-60k/yr for med school just to have a shot at the non-competitive specialties or an outside shot at something moderately competitive and even with that info there's still a 52% chance of either not matching or matching into a field that's not your top choice? No thanks.


I should say I have nothing against Caribbean graduates, and if they have the necessary skills on rotations and can match into a decent residency, then I'll respect them the same as I do any other student/resident. Like @Mad Jack said, I don't have a problem with the students. I have a problem with any medical school that charges exorbitant amounts of money to only place 48% of their students into their desired specialty in the U.S. when they claim that is their primary goal.

 

[Stagg737]

I received >40 interview invites (granted I applied to >100 programs), and went on 25 interviews. So thanks, I'm pretty sure I'll be fine though

Just out of curiosity, how long did it take you to apply to those 100+ programs? I know it's become more common to apply broadly for residencies, but I had never heard of anyone applying to nearly that many until I started talking to international students. I remember how much time it took me to do 35 med school apps, so I can't imagine what 100 for residency would be like...

 

[Siggy]

Just out of curiosity, how long did it take you to apply to those 100+ programs? I know it's become more common to apply broadly for residencies, but I had never heard of anyone applying to nearly that many until I started talking to international students. I remember how much time it took me to do 35 med school apps, so I can't imagine what 100 for residency would be like...

ERAS is much easier to use than AMCAS, especially when it comes to adding things like LORs (which are done in ERAS, unlike AMCAS, which leaves it to your school or other program). There also aren't any secondary applications.

 

[Stagg737]

ERAS is much easier to use than AMCAS, especially when it comes to adding things like LORs (which are done in ERAS, unlike AMCAS, which leaves it to your school or other program). There also aren't any secondary applications.

I knew there were no secondaries, but don't you still have to submit a personal statement to each program? Even if you recycle some of them, writing that many personal statements would still be significantly time consuming. Especially if you're doing an audition rotation or something like that when you have to write them...

 

[Raryn]

I knew there were no secondaries, but don't you still have to submit a personal statement to each program? Even if you recycle some of them, writing that many personal statements would still be significantly time consuming. Especially if you're doing an audition rotation or something like that when you have to write them...

Same personal statement for all programs in the same specialty is what 99.9999% of medical students do. You can customize it for each program if you really want, but it's widely recognized as a douche move.

Obviously, if you apply to multiple specialties, you do multiple PS.

 

[s5260205]

Same personal statement for all programs in the same specialty is what 99.9999% of medical students do. You can customize it for each program if you really want, but it's widely recognized as a douche move.

Obviously, if you apply to multiple specialties, you do multiple PS.

Just curious, why is it a douche move to customise the PS for each program?

 

[Raryn]

Just curious, why is it a douche move to customise the PS for each program?

Because programs see through it, and the PS is not the place to write a love letter to that specific program, it's a place to talk about your motivations and career goals.

I probably overshot with 99.99999%, because some people do have 2-3 PSs, but usually it's to talk about their focus on the underserved to programs that are focused like that and their focus on research or whatever to other programs. But it's still dumb, because one or the other is your actual focus, and you're just hurting yourself by lying.

Literally no one I know had a PS for every individual program they applied to. There's no customization whatsoever for the # of programs most people apply to except choosing which letters go where, and if you're willing to pay $25 a pop, you are more than welcome to apply to 100... 200... 400... or however many programs you want.

 

[PikminOC]

Retaking the MCAT costs a few hundred bucks and they can study while having a job or whatever. Same with the 45 year old. Much, much different than packing up and moving for 4+ years and 250,000 dollars in debt.

And don't forget post bacc programs etc that can be done that will help when they get into a US med school.

 

[the argus]

1. The entire point of the calculations was to compensate for the differences in their numbers. Sure, some people match outside of the NRMP, but they are paid for by the schools. There's a reason that 30 Carib graduates all went to the same place for residency outside the NRMP, and it's not because Ross or wherever had an amazing reputation ($$$).

Are you implying that caribbean schools pay residency programs to take their students? Because if you are, you are way more off the deep end than I thought.

The reason that 30 carib students went to the same place is because that program does not attract US MD applicants, and it is the program's choice to take caribbean students over DO or foreign-IMG.

And all I was doing was using that as an example that there are indeed many, many residency positions that are filled outside the NRMP, and a disproportionate number of them go to IMGs (US or otherwise)

2. Let's assume that those are the stats for preferred specialty. 48% is still a joke, especially when people in the Carib should know their shot at going into any highly competitive field is basically zero and their odds in moderately competitive fields are low. So you're going to pay 50-60k/yr for med school just to have a shot at the non-competitive specialties or an outside shot at something moderately competitive and even with that info there's still a 52% chance of either not matching or matching into a field that's not your top choice? No thanks.

I'm glad that doesn't sound good to you, but it was fine for me because I knew I wanted to do IM. All this information is out there so people know this before deciding to go to school in the caribbean. Ross specifically says on their website that vast majority of their students go into primary care specialties. I know it might seem crazy to you, but some people actually want to go into primary care.

And as I've already stated, that 52% is not representative of each individual person's chance of matching the first year they apply. It is skewed by the relatively small yearly cohort of caribbean grads that are bad and will never match, and these people continue to apply every year. So every year you have all the "fresh" caribbean grads, and then all the bad people from the last 6 years. This causes the numbers to look worse than they actually are.

Just out of curiosity, how long did it take you to apply to those 100+ programs? I know it's become more common to apply broadly for residencies, but I had never heard of anyone applying to nearly that many until I started talking to international students. I remember how much time it took me to do 35 med school apps, so I can't imagine what 100 for residency would be like...

I knew there were no secondaries, but don't you still have to submit a personal statement to each program? Even if you recycle some of them, writing that many personal statements would still be significantly time consuming. Especially if you're doing an audition rotation or something like that when you have to write them...

And again, comments like these show how little you know about the actual residency application process. So why should anyone really take what you say seriously?

I'm really not trying to be a dick, I'm just trying to inject a little fact into this crazy debate.

 

[the argus]

-

 

[fancymylotus]

I had a nightmare that I was in the match, couldn't access a computer on match day and couldn't get to my car to drive to school to find out where I matched

I woke up freaking out covered in sweat.

I blame you @SouthernSurgeon ><

 

[the argus]

No, they pay hospitals/institutions money to take their students into clinical rotations.

It is not off the deep end to think there is implicit or explicit pressure to match some of those students in order to keep the cash flow moving

I don't think this is the case, where I rotated it definitely wasn't.

But either way, if programs wanted to do this they could just as easily do it through the NRMP as they could outside the match. It has absolutely no relevance to prematch vs NRMP.

It was being implied that the reason programs are full of caribbean grads was because caribbean schools pay residency programs to take their students, which is ridiculous. The reason that programs are filled with caribbean grads is that US MD students do not want to go there.

And this brings us to the real crux of this whole issue. The only reason caribbean schools are able to continue to operate is because the US medical education system does not produce enough graduates to fulfill the demands of the US residency system.

If you guys are really that against caribbean medical education, what you should be angry about is that US schools don't teach enough students. If the US system produced enough students, caribbean schools would disappear, plain and simple.

Until that happens (which may be by 2020, I don't know because I was never that good at predicting the future), caribbean schools will continue to operate because they fill a need.

 

[Goro]

This is exactly what happened to one of our rotation sites.

It's also the type of thing that triggered some grumbling in NY state about regulating the process, to prevent this from happening. That bus is coming, BTW.

No, they pay hospitals/institutions money to take their students into clinical rotations.

It is not off the deep end to think there is implicit or explicit pressure to match some of those students in order to keep the cash flow moving

Says something about the quality of the program, doesn't it?

The reason that programs are filled with caribbean grads is that US MD students do not want to go there.

 

[the argus]

This is exactly what happened to one of our rotation sites.

It's also the type of thing that triggered some grumbling in NY state about regulating the process, to prevent this from happening.

Yes it happens that US schools lose spots because caribbean schools buy them out. But I would seriously doubt that when that happened it caused a shift in the make-up of that hospital's residency programs.

Before it was all US MD grads in the residencies, and then once caribbean students started rotating there all the residency spots started going to caribbean grads? No way.

 

[Goro]

Fill in the blank: "Money talks and ___ walks".

Yes it happens that US schools lose spots because caribbean schools buy them out. But I would seriously doubt that when that happened it caused a shift in the make-up of that hospital's residency programs.

 

[the argus]

This is exactly what happened to one of our rotation sites.

It's also the type of thing that triggered some grumbling in NY state about regulating the process, to prevent this from happening. That bus is coming, BTW.




Says something about the quality of the program, doesn't it?

The reason that programs are filled with caribbean grads is that US MD students do not want to go there.

So now this has gone from being caribbean schools are bad, to all these US residency programs are bad?

 

[Mad Jack]

It just comes across kind of like showing up with an engagement ring to a blind date.

That's very good to know. I kind of viewed it as similar to applying for jobs, a process in which your application would land directly in the trash without any customization for each place you were applying to. Nice to know I can just make one app and not have to tweak it for every individual place.

 

[Goro]

Your words, not mine:

The reason that programs are filled with caribbean grads is that US MD students do not want to go there.

So now this has gone from being caribbean schools are bad, to all these US residency programs are bad?

 

[the argus]

Do you also doubt that pharma companies buying gifts for physicians influences prescribing habits?

This is very basic level stuff here, it's hardly a conspiracy theory.

You guys are starting to sound crazy.

Has the match rate for US MD graduates gone down at all in the last 10 years? No it hasn't, because what you are insinuating is happening is pure fantasy.

 

[the argus]

No, that's you trying to deflect

Deflecting what? He said, "Says something about the quality of the program, doesn't it?"

I was just pointing out that he moved on from trashing caribbean medical schools to also trashing the hundreds of US residency programs that take caribbean medical students every year.

 

[the argus]

They are doing it to maintain matches in a changing environment.

This isn't an insinuation. This is actually happening.

Maintain matches from who? Who is not matching because caribbean students are?

US MD match rate has not changed, and the US DO match rate is increasing. So who exactly is getting pushed aside in favor of caribbean students?

 

[the argus]

So?

Just as there is a spectrum of quality in medical school, there is a spectrum of quality in graduate medical education, ranging from the excellent to the unacceptable. Some residency programs probably shouldn't exist either. But they do.

It in no way undermines Goro's point to acknowledge this.

What was his point? That caribbean schools buy out rotation spots? No one would argue that this is not true.

What I would argue is that there is some quid pro quo going on behind the scenes for residency spots also. You have absolutely no evidence this is happening other than your opinion, which I wouldn't really consider evidence.

 

[Psai]

the residency programs that have a lot of caribbean medical students are definitely bottom of the barrel. the level of understanding is poor, the teaching is poor as the students are of poor quality and it affects everyone at that institution. it's a self-fulfilling prophecy: people think the residency program is bad so the good students avoid them and it becomes filled with bad students. so only bad students and people with ties to the area go there and the people with choices continue to go elsewhere

 

[the argus]

the residency programs that have a lot of caribbean medical students are definitely bottom of the barrel. the level of understanding is poor, the teaching is poor as the students are of poor quality and it affects everyone at that institution. it's a self-fulfilling prophecy: people think the residency program is bad so the good students avoid them and it becomes filled with bad students. so only bad students and people with ties to the area go there and the people with choices continue to go elsewhere

I agree with you, but I think you are painting with too wide a brush. Some of these programs are good and some are bad, but that doesn't change the fact that they still maintain the standards put forth by the ACGME. Programs that don't get shut down, this happens all the time.

I just wasn't sure what this had to do with the discussion we are having.

 

[Psai]

this thread is about caribbean failure stories
crappy doctors that somehow make it through the training system are still failures

 

[the argus]

this thread is about caribbean failure stories
crappy doctors that somehow make it through the training system are still failures

You are pretty arrogant for someone who has yet to actually do anything in their medical career other than gain admission to medical school

 

[Psai]

at least i won't spend my residency telling people where i did my third year rotations and conveniently leaving out my school name from my resume as an attending ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[fancymylotus]

at least i won't spend my residency telling people where i did my third year rotations and conveniently leaving out my school name from my resume as an attending ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

loooooooool

 

[the argus]

at least it's a legitimate school. so i won't spend my residency telling people where i did my third year rotations and conveniently leaving it out on my resume as an attending ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

You again are showing your ignorance. I'll let you in on a secret. Once you are in residency and actually a practicing physician, no one really cares where you went to medical school. People are much more concerned whether you are competent or not.

Where you went to medical school is a representation of how good of a collegiate undergraduate student you were, not how good of a physician you will be.

 

[the argus]

"Where did you go to medical school?"

"I trained in New York"

.

internet tough guy spewing petty personal attacks. Awesome!

 

[Psai]

the amount of work that it takes to get into a real medical school as opposed to offshore is much greater. it is much more difficult to maintain a 3.8 gpa than a 3.0. that work ethic (or lack thereof) generally continues into medical school and residency. the school you get into does not determine your knowledge or ability but it sure as hell is a good surrogate measure. the reasons for why you went to that school matter and it's almost certainly because those people didn't have a choice. the people who go to harvard are smarter and harder working than the people who go to st george even if they call themselves the harvard of the caribbean (lol). these are the facts of life son

 

[username456789]

"Where did you go to medical school?"

"I trained in New York"

.

I know I've mentioned on several occasions how awkwardly hilarious this is. Every time I encounter it, I cringe a little. It's like clockwork.

 

[Stagg737]

Are you implying that caribbean schools pay residency programs to take their students? Because if you are, you are way more off the deep end than I thought.

The reason that 30 carib students went to the same place is because that program does not attract US MD applicants, and it is the program's choice to take caribbean students over DO or foreign-IMG.

And all I was doing was using that as an example that there are indeed many, many residency positions that are filled outside the NRMP, and a disproportionate number of them go to IMGs (US or otherwise)

I'm glad that doesn't sound good to you, but it was fine for me because I knew I wanted to do IM. All this information is out there so people know this before deciding to go to school in the caribbean. Ross specifically says on their website that vast majority of their students go into primary care specialties. I know it might seem crazy to you, but some people actually want to go into primary care.

And as I've already stated, that 52% is not representative of each individual person's chance of matching the first year they apply. It is skewed by the relatively small yearly cohort of caribbean grads that are bad and will never match, and these people continue to apply every year. So every year you have all the "fresh" caribbean grads, and then all the bad people from the last 6 years. This causes the numbers to look worse than they actually are.

And again, comments like these show how little you know about the actual residency application process. So why should anyone really take what you say seriously?

I'm really not trying to be a dick, I'm just trying to inject a little fact into this crazy debate.

I was not. I was inferring that rotation places are paid for, so if those places want to keep getting paid for rotation spots, they have to make sure their Carib students match somewhere or the schools will just find other rotation sites to pay that will get their students into residencies. Southern Surgeon summed it up nicely.

I agree that many Caribbean students match into crappy programs because US students don't want to be there. But if they had a real shot at matching into the more competitive programs, even in non-competitive specialties, then the bad programs wouldn't be filled with Caribbean grads. I thought that was just common sense. Of course some people want to go into primary care, but it makes sense that you'd still want to have your choice of program, so you'd want to be as competitive as possible. That means staying in the U.S.

Obviously the 52% is not representative of each individual. Statistics are never meant to be personalized for individuals, they're meant to identify trends and correlations. Sure, the re-applicants skew the results, but the general statistics for Caribbean schools still aren't good. To many, myself included, they are just plain bad when you take into account attrition and match rates.

No offense taken. I'm an M1, so while I've seen plenty of data on match lists, rates, etc. I'm not too concerned about the actual process at the moment. I'd rather focus on Step 1 and my ECs for now and focus on the match after 2nd year.

It was being implied that the reason programs are full of caribbean grads was because caribbean schools pay residency programs to take their students, which is ridiculous. The reason that programs are filled with caribbean grads is that US MD students do not want to go there.

And this brings us to the real crux of this whole issue. The only reason caribbean schools are able to continue to operate is because the US medical education system does not produce enough graduates to fulfill the demands of the US residency system.

If you guys are really that against caribbean medical education, what you should be angry about is that US schools don't teach enough students. If the US system produced enough students, caribbean schools would disappear, plain and simple.

Until that happens (which may be by 2020, I don't know because I was never that good at predicting the future), caribbean schools will continue to operate because they fill a need.

Agree with the first bolded part, and I never meant to imply that the actual residency programs were being paid off. However, I find it very interesting that many of the clinical rotation sites that are paid by Carib schools are in NY and many Caribbean graduates match in NY. It's really not that hard to connect the dots there, especially when big money is involved.

The underlined is absolutely true. Consider this though, there are several new med schools opening up and the merger is occurring. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that a few AOA programs don't make the cut, lowering the total number of residency spots. Knowing that there will be more U.S. applicants for possibly fewer residency spots, who do you think will be the ones left out in the cold? Keep in mind that out of 12,000 total international applicants, only 6,350 matched. Sure, some got in outside the match, but not enough to make those numbers look decent. I'm not going to say I (or anyone) can know what will happen in the future, but most people can see that the outlook for most Caribbean graduates is not good here.

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2014/...-match-results-is-there-really-a-gme-squeeze/

 

[jakeislove]

Lots of mutual admiration going on here.

 

[BDUS]

During residency I don't ever remember anyone asking me what school I went to but as a student I did. Usually if they were asking it was because they had a family member in medicine. There are a lot of grads from my school (sgu) so they often knew of someone (a friend or family) that had also gone to my school.

 

[PL198]

I was not. I was inferring that rotation places are paid for, so if those places want to keep getting paid for rotation spots, they have to make sure their Carib students match somewhere or the schools will just find other rotation sites to pay that will get their students into residencies. Southern Surgeon summed it up nicely.

I agree that many Caribbean students match into crappy programs because US students don't want to be there. But if they had a real shot at matching into the more competitive programs, even in non-competitive specialties, then the bad programs wouldn't be filled with Caribbean grads. I thought that was just common sense. Of course some people want to go into primary care, but it makes sense that you'd still want to have your choice of program, so you'd want to be as competitive as possible. That means staying in the U.S.

Obviously the 52% is not representative of each individual. Statistics are never meant to be personalized for individuals, they're meant to identify trends and correlations. Sure, the re-applicants skew the results, but the general statistics for Caribbean schools still aren't good. To many, myself included, they are just plain bad when you take into account attrition and match rates.

No offense taken. I'm an M1, so while I've seen plenty of data on match lists, rates, etc. I'm not too concerned about the actual process at the moment. I'd rather focus on Step 1 and my ECs for now and focus on the match after 2nd year.




Agree with the first bolded part, and I never meant to imply that the actual residency programs were being paid off. However, I find it very interesting that many of the clinical rotation sites that are paid by Carib schools are in NY and many Caribbean graduates match in NY. It's really not that hard to connect the dots there, especially when big money is involved.

The underlined is absolutely true. Consider this though, there are several new med schools opening up and the merger is occurring. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that a few AOA programs don't make the cut, lowering the total number of residency spots. Knowing that there will be more U.S. applicants for possibly fewer residency spots, who do you think will be the ones left out in the cold? Keep in mind that out of 12,000 total international applicants, only 6,350 matched. Sure, some got in outside the match, but not enough to make those numbers look decent. I'm not going to say I (or anyone) can know what will happen in the future, but most people can see that the outlook for most Caribbean graduates is not good here.

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2014/...-match-results-is-there-really-a-gme-squeeze/

except I've yet to see anyone show that the hospitals that the carribean kids rotate at are the same ones who have residency programs that are predominantly IMG

 

[the argus]

However, I find it very interesting that many of the clinical rotation sites that are paid by Carib schools are in NY and many Caribbean graduates match in NY. It's really not that hard to connect the dots there, especially when big money is involved.

There are so many carib students rotating in NYC because there is abundance of hospitals there that don't have any US medical students (or very few) rotating through them. There are 6 medical schools in NYC, 9 million people, and >40 hospitals. Caribs end up there for rotations because there are hospitals with residency programs, but no US medical students, so they have room for the caribs.

This is also the same reason so many IMGs end up in NYC for residency, just an overabundance of availability. There are ~40 internal medicine residency programs in NYC alone, most of which are in bad locations, in run down hospitals, and with difficult patient populations.

It makes total sense that US grads don't want to go there for residency, I don't want to be there either. But if it is between working in a difficult hospital for 3 years and then having your whole career ahead of you, or not matching and having nothing, you better believe I would choose the difficult hospital in NYC. Someone has to treat these patients, so that is why lots of IMGs end up there.

 

[WingedOx]

It makes total sense that US grads don't want to go there for residency, I don't want to be there either. But if it is between working in a difficult hospital for 3 years and then having your whole career ahead of you, or not matching and having nothing, you better believe I would choose the difficult hospital in NYC. Someone has to treat these patients, so that is why lots of IMGs end up there.

There are a lot in NYC, but there's also a lot of them at random hospitals at smaller cities in the Midwest too. And it isn't just about the patients and their poverty or whatnot (I'm at an academic center that treats a majority of medicaid...whereas the nearest community program to us that takes IMGs is in a very cushy suburban location). It's about the quality of the training you receive...

For all the encouragement talk of "just get through it and in the end you'll be a licensed physician," there are some scary MDs out there that quite simply didn't get great training, and it shows. It's amazing the number of times you see a patient come in for an intake appointment with a med list that makes your jaw drop that a licensed, board-certified physician actually prescribed it.

 

[occams_razor]

And don't forget post bacc programs etc that can be done that will help when they get into a US med school.

Some people are very impatient and/or hung up on getting an MD and refuse to consider DO. There was a guy I went to undergrad with, we volunteered together for a few years and he was a smart guy but he was borderline for US MD admissions (he had a 28 MCAT). He had some pretty impressive ECs but his biggest mistake was applying super late in the cycle - he didn't take his MCAT until August. He refused to consider DO schools (pretty much entirely because of things his dad said) and he also refused to consider taking a gap year, re-taking the MCAT or doing post-bacc work. He just wanted to start med school right away and it had to be MD, so he ended up going to SGU. The worst part is that our school's pre-med advisor didn't even try to dissuade him. He was apparently told that going to the Caribbean is a "good option"

 

[PL198]

Some people are very impatient and/or hung up on getting an MD and refuse to consider DO. There was a guy I went to undergrad with, we volunteered together for a few years and he was a smart guy but he was borderline for US MD admissions (he had a 28 MCAT). He had some pretty impressive ECs but his biggest mistake was applying super late in the cycle - he didn't take his MCAT until August. He refused to consider DO schools (pretty much entirely because of things his dad said) and he also refused to consider taking a gap year, re-taking the MCAT or doing post-bacc work. He just wanted to start med school right away and it had to be MD, so he ended up going to SGU. The worst part is that our school's pre-med advisor didn't even try to dissuade him. He was apparently told that going to the Caribbean is a "good option"

why would anyone listen to their advisor. that's like me going up to a random guy in 7/11 and telling him to advise me on my career. no thanks, I'll do the research myself.

 

[YankeeCandle1141]

why would anyone listen to their advisor. that's like me going up to a random guy in 7/11 and telling him to advise me on my career. no thanks, I'll do the research myself.

...no, its like asking a guy in 7/11 about 7/11.

 

[PL198]

not really. if a glorified guidance counselor is who you are making career moves based on their advice, you're basically looking for trouble

 

[the argus]

For all the encouragement talk of "just get through it and in the end you'll be a licensed physician," there are some scary MDs out there that quite simply didn't get great training, and it shows. It's amazing the number of times you see a patient come in for an intake appointment with a med list that makes your jaw drop that a licensed, board-certified physician actually prescribed it.

No doubt, but I think by this stage in the game your quality as a physician is 95% dependent on your own personal work ethic and desire to learn, not where you are physically training. Obviously at larger academic centers you will see more rare/interesting cases and be more exposed to cutting edge medicine, but once you are in residency if you are not directing the majority of your own learning chances are you will end up being a ****ty physician, regardless of where you train.