DO vs. Caribbean (with U.S. clinical rotations) for Residency Options

[AnatomyGrey12]

None of them. If that's your only choice, then find a different career, because it will be cheaper than having a useless MD degree and deeply in debt.

Actually it's my understanding that for Canadians the Carib is actually a valid option. It's not the dead end for them like it is for Americans. Something about how their residency programs are set up

Disclaimer : If this is not true disregard this post as I am not super informed on the Canadian system and their prospects and defer to your knowledge

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[Seth Joo]

There are about 10 Canadians or so at my school. The DO Canadian route is a bit of a struggle, but hey, you're living in the first world and you're going to graduate, so it's much better than Carib.

DOs have few issues working in Canada, each province though seems to have its own rules regarding licensing Osteopathic physicians from the United States, my school gets a good number of Canadians. I believe Quebec is the most difficult province, you need to prove that you can speak French fluently and complete at least a year of GME in a hospital in that province, this is what I was told from a Canadian classmate of mine.

 

[lilahmy3]

would it be better to go DO or reapply in a year and try to go MD??

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

would it be better to go DO or reapply in a year and try to go MD??

Are you asking if you should drop an acceptance to a DO school as instead reapply to MD schools? Obviously not. There's no guarantee that you'll get in to MD and will essentially as a result be locking yourself from going to medical school potentially.

Where to apply at all to DO instead of waiting a year? Depends on factors. If you're over 30, want primary care or think surgery is nasty, and others then going DO is fine. If you want to be an academic cardiologist or surgeon then I would recommend considering taking a year off. But even then these aren't 100% closed off to DOs.

 

[FranticDoc]

Actually, the passing USMLE score for a successful US IMG was not substantially different from that of their unsuccessful peers. Those who matched had a mean Step 1 score of 217, unmatched: 204. Though they are both pretty low, the data does not support high stats being a defining characteristic of successful US IMG's. In my experience, really high stats are a red flag: why would someone capable of getting a score that high choose to go to the Caribbean (pretty scary). We don't interview Caribbean grads but if we did, both high and low scores would be exclusion criteria. Success for US IMG's does seem more likely to be associated with a larger number of contiguous ranks. The more interviews you get, the more you can rank. To your point regarding AMG's, there were 56 US Seniors with Step 1 scores >241 that did not match in Ortho. Scores do not guarantee success for anyone in the very competitive specialties.
http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Charting-Outcomes-2014-Final.pdf
http://www.ecfmg.org/resources/NRMP...atch-International-Medical-Graduates-2014.pdf

Do you interview DO grads?

 

[gyngyn]

Do you interview DO grads?

Each department makes interview decisions independently.
Many of them have DO residents.
I do not know if the ones with no DO residents interviewed them or not, though.