I don't believe those stats for a second. No school has a 100% placement rate unless they are severely massaging those numbers to the point of them being meaningless.
You sound pretty committed to going this route, so I'm not going to waste my breath trying to convince you otherwise. Suffice it to say that I've been following Caribbean medical education for the last 4 years now. I've seen first-hand how hard it is for students from SGU and Ross, easily the two most well-known Caribbean medical schools, to obtain residencies. I don't know how many people need to tell you this is a bad idea before you'll start believing us.
At the very least, you should ask for a list of programs students have obtained residencies, and ask for the contact info for 2-3 graduates that have obtained residencies and email them. To be honest, I would be shocked to learn that a graduate with an online MD was able to obtain a residency at any US program.
You're definitely not wasting your breath, and I appreciate the points you've given me to consider regarding Caribbean medical schools. I know it probably sounds like I have decided to apply to and attend USAT or Destiny, but that's definitely not the case; I'm simply trying to find specific, concrete reasons (e.g., distance education carrying a stigma in the physician community) as to why either of those schools would be a bad choice for foreign medical education. I see that you listed the statistic that only 20% of graduates of St. Lucia programs matched into their first choices of residencies, which is definitely worrisome (of course, I do wonder how many of them had a hard time matching because they had uncompetitive Step scores and/or low GPAs, which could also allude to why they attended a program other than one of the "Big 4" in the first place).
At this point, I haven't yet decided what my next major step, career-wise, will be. One of the primary reasons I'm considering Caribbean medical schools is because I previously failed out of nursing school with an "F" (it was a clinical failure dealing with paperwork submissions, not an academic failure), so I probably wouldn't even have a fleeting chance of attaining admission to a US medical school. However, my backstory is kind of complicated -- I originally earned a Biology degree and took the pre-med pre-requisites, decided I wanted to be a CRNA, went to nursing school, and failed out. I know I would enjoy being a CRNA or an anesthesiologist or even a primary care physician, but the "catch" is that I REALLY didn't enjoy nursing clinicals, and I think my lack of passion for nursing is what led to my failing in the first place. However, if I was offered the opportunity right now to either attend CRNA school and skip undergraduate nursing school, or attend medical school and have my choice of matching into any primary care residency (while reserving the future option to subsequently apply for fellowships), I would have a really hard time deciding which opportunity to make my choice on.
Having said all that, I obviously have some tough decisions to make. Luckily enough, I have actually been accepted to start over at a different nursing program in January, which I would graduate from in December 2015 (three semesters later). However, my "gut feeling" is that bedside nursing isn't for me (even if I genuinely would enjoy being a CRNA), and at the same time, I'm ready and willing to spend 6+ hours/day studying if I actually do end up matriculating at a Caribbean medical school in January.
Anyways, I did get in touch with USAT's director regarding residencies, and he sent me a (partial, I'm assuming) list of the residencies that some of their graduates have matched into (copied from my email):
If you browse through the list, you'll notice that someone actually graduated from this school and matched into Neurosurgery.... WHAT?! Isn't it generally regarded as being impossible for ANY Caribbean grad to match into an ultra-competitive residency such as that one?
Someone also matched into Radiology, I noticed, which also seems surprising. Something seems to not be adding up here, in a "too-good-to-be-true" kind of way. The director of this program did say that all of their lectures -- even the online ones -- are presented "live" and not pre-recorded, which, according to him, ensures that basically all states except California will be willing to license their graduates. They also have to spend one week per month at a satellite campus in the USA and physically attend lectures and labs.
I guess I'm just confused here.... on the one hand, something seems "off" about this whole thing, but at the same time, how are their graduates (supposedly) matching into residencies, and competitive ones at that?