TIMING - Intern in Ireland and then US residency?

[Kan40]

Hi all,
I am planning on applying for US residency in internal medicine but wish to do intern year in Ireland first (I am a student in Ireland and Irish citizen) to get my surgical requirement done.

My question is about TIMING...If I do intern year in Ireland which is July -July, I feel that I wont have time to go straight to internship in the US which also starts in July. And I might have trouble getting time off in intern year in Ireland to go to the US for interviews.

Has anyone done this before? I can't apply to the US in final year of med school as I have not yet taken the USMLEs (bad planning on my part!)

Any advice?
Thanks!

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[leorl]

Loads of us have done it. In my year at St. James's, 3 of us Americans completed internship then returned to the US for residency (other Americans stayed, they had not done their USMLEs yet).

Basically what you do is request vacation off the last 3 weeks of June. Obviously, they can only grant that to a certain number of people. If you don't get it (I didn't), then you basically say...well sorry, I'm eligible for 10 sick days + conference days and basically use our sick day time. This is flying under the radar and although I didn't let the hospital know I was doing this, I let my team know in advance so they could prepare to be down an intern.

Keep in mind that before you start residency/internship, most hospitals have a mandatory 2 week period in June for orientation.

You have 6 weeks of vacation. You use the first part to schedule interviews (usually late November/December). You try to use the 2nd part to move back home / residency orientation. And in between there's usually some days to get some vacation in there. And you have sick days.

 

[Kan40]

Thanks leorl, great to hear other people have been able to do this!
Hopefully it will work out