Moving to France For Medicine?

[Tigrane]

As of right now, I am a sophomore in High School. I have dual-citizenship so I am a French citizen and I speak fluent french. I have been contemplating moving back to France for a long time because it is my home. My real dream job would obviously be a physician, probably internal medicine, but my second choice would be computer engineer. I know that if I became a computer engineer I could apply for a job in France with no problem, but medicine is different. I would have to go through residency and stuff all over again if I moved. I am know that education in France is much more difficult than in California (where I live currently), but is there a way to start off medical school here and move to France and finish med school there? If not, is re-doing residency and everything really that bad? Thanks a lot!

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[DubVille]

No, it is essentially impossible to transfer to an international school from the USA (they have different accrediting bodies.). You may not have to re-do residency however. France likely has a process of accreditation for physicians from the USA. In many European countries it is a lot of paperwork, sometimes one year of "residency", sometimes taking an exam to prove competency. Due to your dual citizenship it may not be extremely hard to find a job. Most European Union countries are very closed off to non-citizens. Also physicians in France make substantially less than in the USA (about 40-50% less) but have better hours, vacation, etc. Finally, med school is very expensive in the USA and you are looking at an absolute minimum of 250k of debt and that is very optimistic. If you did med school in France you would have probably 10-20% of that amount of debt.

It's incredibly early, enjoy high school and decide what route to go at the end of freshman year in college, no need to get too worked up yet.