Xxx

[Tenk]

I think they'll end up having to pay taxes on the amount forgiven so they're still kinda screwed. They could file for bankruptcy and hope for the best

You don’t pay taxes on PSLF. You pay taxes if you make payments for 25 years and there’s still some left. You pay taxes on the forgiven part then.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[chuxi]

Reading this article makes me think about my friend who withdrew from a T20 US MD program and is now an M2 at SGU... I don't know how to break it to her that her dreams of becoming a pediatric neurosurgeon are going to be much, much more difficult than she thinks. ):

 

[Medicine-Man]

Reading this article makes me think about my friend who withdrew from a T20 US MD program and is now an M2 at SGU... I don't know how to break it to her that her dreams of becoming a pediatric neurosurgeon are going to be much, much more difficult than she thinks. ):

please elaborate, that sounds crazy

 

[DNAJB6]

Reading this article makes me think about my friend who withdrew from a T20 US MD program and is now an M2 at SGU... I don't know how to break it to her that her dreams of becoming a pediatric neurosurgeon are going to be much, much more difficult than she thinks. ):

I wouldn’t want her touching my kids.

 

[chuxi]

please elaborate, that sounds crazy

For privacy concerns I won't be giving out specific details, but the gist of it is: she was an M2 at a T20 school when she was involved in a situation that necessitated her withdrawal. I'm not entirely sure why she didn't choose to take a LOA, but afterwards, her school did not let her return to finish and no stateside programs were willing to let her transfer her credits over. Instead of reapplying here, she found that SGU and other Carib schools were willing to accept her pre-clinical course credits.. so there you go.

I wouldn’t want her touching my kids.

I'm not sure she'll ever get the chance to so you can rest easy at night!

 

[KnightDoc]

For privacy concerns I won't be giving out specific details, but the gist of it is: she was an M2 at a T20 school when she was involved in a situation that necessitated her withdrawal. I'm not entirely sure why she didn't choose to take a LOA, but afterwards, her school did not let her return to finish and no stateside programs were willing to let her transfer her credits over. Instead of reapplying here, she found that SGU and other Carib schools were willing to accept her pre-clinical course credits.. so there you go.

I'm not sure she'll ever get the chance to so you can rest easy at night!

I am pretty sure this is EXACTLY what @gonnif was talking about, as opposed to just merely flunking out and starting over. If so, forget neurosurgery -- she won't be able to get licensed even if she is lucky enough to land a residency, which is likely why no stateside school would touch her. Why on earth wouldn't she research the hell out of this before spending the time and money? She's going to be on a picket line with the rest of the Doctors Without Jobs gang.

 

[DNAJB6]

I am pretty sure this is EXACTLY what @gonnif was talking about, as opposed to just merely flunking out and starting over. If so, forget neurosurgery -- she won't be able to get licensed even if she is lucky enough to land a residency, which is likely why no stateside school would touch her. Why on earth wouldn't she research the hell out this before spending the time and money? She's going to be on a picket line with the rest of the Doctors Without Jobs gang.

That’s an incredibly broad proclamation. Every state board has its own rules governed by state law. Find the state with the most lax rules and apply there. I’m sure there are reciprocity agreements between states and even in the absence of one, it will make getting a medical license elsewhere easier.

 

[KnightDoc]

That’s an incredibly broad proclamation. Every state board has its own rules governed by state law. Find the state with the most lax rules and apply there. I’m sure there are reciprocity agreements between states and even in the absence of one, it will make getting a medical license elsewhere easier.

I'm certainly no expert, but I'd be shocked if a place like NY would allow someone to backdoor their way into a license by granting reciprocity, or deference to a license granted elsewhere with more lax rules. @gonnif?

 

[Mad Jack]

Ugh I didn’t mean to become a Douglas Medina expert but I did Google him extensively because his writing is like watching a car crash and I’m unable to look away.

Anyways, it’s psychiatry.

Yeah, basically any psych residency is screening out scores as low as it sounds like he had these days. If he applied broadly to community programs he might match, but US grads in the lowest score ranges (<200) had a match rate of around 72%. For him to fall in the 28% of people that didn't match probably means there were... Other... Things wrong with his app or his interviewing skills.

 

[Mad Jack]

That’s an incredibly broad proclamation. Every state board has its own rules governed by state law. Find the state with the most lax rules and apply there. I’m sure there are reciprocity agreements between states and even in the absence of one, it will make getting a medical license elsewhere easier.

FSMB | State Specific Requirements for Initial Medical Licensure

www.fsmb.org

In the states with a 7 year rule, it is absolute, even in the case of reciprocity agreements. Reciprocity speeds applications but does not supersedes individual board requirements for licensure. This would make an individual ineligible for residency in most states to begin with. Furthermore, even in states that allow for licensure after this period, the board will usually require written justification for your absence. I literally have to account for even the *month between medical school and residency* in some states. Accounting for 7 years is going to draw some eyeballs at the board.

 

[Splenda88]

Yeah, basically any psych residency is screening out scores as low as it sounds like he had these days. If he applied broadly to community programs he might match, but US grads in the lowest score ranges (<200) had a match rate of around 72%. For him to fall in the 28% of people that didn't match probably means there were... Other... Things wrong with his app or his interviewing skills.

Residency interviews are more lax than med school interviews. It's hard for me to imagine that someone get rejected just for their interview skill everywhere.

 

[Mad Jack]

Residency interviews are more lax than med school interviews. It's hard for me to imagine that someone get rejected just for their interview skill everywhere.

They really aren't though. We are meticulously ranking 10-20 people for every spot and it is almost 100% based upon personality in psychiatry. Maybe in other fields it is different, but in psych how you present is everything. My program has ranked a few US MDs low before with incredibly high Step scores that ended up not matching anywhere, and having interacted with these people it was obvious why that was the case.

 

[RangerBob]

They really aren't though. We are meticulously ranking 10-20 people for every spot and it is almost 100% based upon personality in psychiatry. Maybe in other fields it is different, but in psych how you present is everything. My program has ranked a few US MDs low before with incredibly high Step scores that ended up not matching anywhere, and having interacted with these people it was obvious why that was the case.

I'm scratching my head wondering why personality is so important in psychiatry... It's not like you deal with borderline/narcissistic/etc patients, or patients whose perceptions of reality are markedly distorted and need to have faith in their prescribing psychiatrist or anything like that...

I'm pretty sure just telling them you scored 265+ on step I is enough to get them to take their meds.

Right?

It completely makes sense, but the sad part of the coin with personality mattering so much in psych rank lists is it'd be awfully hard to not take rejection personally. Since it's literally personal...

 

[Medisaint]

I agree with most of the other people on this thread. This NYT article was able to hit a lot of the progressive-themed notes by sidestepping a number of inconvenient truths.

A few of my issues with this piece:
1) People who apply to Caribbean schools are generally weaker medical school candidates which (unsurprisingly) may translate into being weaker residency candidates 4 years later.
2) For-profit medical schools are not designed to ensure the long term success of their graduates. To the extent they do care about preserving their board passing and match rates metrics, they will manipulate their figures by preventing marginal applicants from graduating or sitting for the USMLE.
3) "IMGs" are not a monolith. There is an important distinction between Foreign Medical Graduates (FMGs) and US International Medical Graduates (US IMGs). FMGs frequently match to excellent US residency programs (despite having the system stacked against them as noncitizens). If residency programs have a blanket prejudice against IMGs why are applicants from All-India Medical Institute, Aga Khan MC, AUB able to match to amazing programs?
4) What cosmic rule states that MD holders entitled to absolute job security? If you graduate bottom of your class from a low tier law school are you entitled a job at a law firm? No way.
5) What are the risks associated with credentialing doctors who cannot match under the current system? In my opinion this is the biggest flaw of the article. They lay the blame for these unmatched MD's hardships at the feet of a system designed to select for the best candidates. If these these quality control safeguards were to be relaxed how would this affect patients? Who on earth was want a marginal candidate treating their grandmother?

From what I have read on the subject I think there are a few options.
1) Better pre-med education. Screen out the people who are only setting themselves up for failure.
2) Better regulation of these for-profit schools. There should be financial penalties for schools who accept unqualified applicants who can't use the degree they bought.
3) I like the idea of keeping a PA track open for these unmatched MDs.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

I agree with most of the other people on this thread. This NYT article was able to hit a lot of the progressive-themed notes by sidestepping a number of inconvenient truths.

A few of my issues with this piece:
1) People who apply to Caribbean schools are generally weaker medical school candidates which (unsurprisingly) may translate into being weaker residency candidates 4 years later.
2) For-profit medical schools are not designed to ensure the long term success of their graduates. To the extent they do care about preserving their board passing and match rates metrics, they will manipulate their figures by preventing marginal applicants from graduating or sitting for the USMLE.
3) "IMGs" are not a monolith. There is an important distinction between Foreign Medical Graduates (FMGs) and US International Medical Graduates (US IMGs). FMGs frequently match to excellent US residency programs (despite having the system stacked against them as noncitizens). If residency programs have a blanket prejudice against IMGs why are applicants from All-India Medical Institute, Aga Khan MC, AUB able to match to amazing programs?
4) What cosmic rule states that MD holders entitled to absolute job security? If you graduate bottom of your class from a low tier law school are you entitled a job at a law firm? No way.
5) What are the risks associated with credentialing doctors who cannot match under the current system? In my opinion this is the biggest flaw of the article. They lay the blame for these unmatched MD's hardships at the feet of a system designed to select for the best candidates. If these these quality control safeguards were to be relaxed how would this affect patients? Who on earth was want a marginal candidate treating their grandmother?

From what I have read on the subject I think there are a few options.
1) Better pre-med education. Screen out the people who are only setting themselves up for failure.
2) Better regulation of these for-profit schools. There should be financial penalties for schools who accept unqualified applicants who can't use the degree they bought.
3) I like the idea of keeping a PA track open for these unmatched MDs.

To answer your question about IMGs, many are absolute rock stars in their home countries who have completed residencies and come with extensive research, PhDs, and faculty appointments. This is why many match at excellent programs.

 

[LittleBrother]

I don't know how people continue to pay for a NYT subscription. This isn't "journalism". If their reporting for this story is this bad, imagine how bad their reporting is for stories when we are not familiar with the background facts.

I've been a professional in a couple fields they have written about and can say that they are just as disingenuous about the facts in those fields as well.

 

[YCAGA]

I've been a professional in a couple fields they have written about and can say that they are just as disingenuous about the facts in those fields as well.

Lol, love to hear it. I honestly wonder how long it takes them to throw together a story like this? Maybe half a day, then get a $30 cocktail at lunch and go home to their 200 sq ft closet apartment?

 

[jhmmd]

oh shit I thought this was a commercial for L'oreal or something

 

[DNAJB6]

FSMB | State Specific Requirements for Initial Medical Licensure

www.fsmb.org

In the states with a 7 year rule, it is absolute, even in the case of reciprocity agreements. Reciprocity speeds applications but does not supersedes individual board requirements for licensure. This would make an individual ineligible for residency in most states to begin with. Furthermore, even in states that allow for licensure after this period, the board will usually require written justification for your absence. I literally have to account for even the *month between medical school and residency* in some states. Accounting for 7 years is going to draw some eyeballs at the board.

7 years from when? One state explicitly states 7 years from initial Step 1 not medical school matriculation. The caption for the other states strongly supports that it is from initial Step 1 passage too. You could flunk prior to USMLE Step 1, matriculate as IMG and still theoretically dodge the rule if that is the case (not that this should ve anyone's goal).

 

[Mad Jack]

7 years from when? One state explicitly states 7 years from initial Step 1 not medical school matriculation. The caption for the other states strongly supports that it is from initial Step 1 passage too. You could flunk prior to USMLE Step 1, matriculate as IMG and still theoretically dodge the rule if that is the case (not that this should ve anyone's goal).

It is from Step 1, but my understanding was this woman had completed 3 years of training, and thus had to have done Step 1 before her 7 year hiatus

 

[KYLIE14]

The ironic part is most clinical doctors never look at another doc and ask MD or DO? Doctors view each other by the specialty they are in. Once you are practicing they really dont give a damn about the degree.

Once you are practicing.

 

[IM/Addiction Doc]

‘I Am Worth It’: Why Thousands of Doctors in America Can’t Get a Job

Medical schools are producing more graduates, but residency programs haven’t kept up, leaving thousands of young doctors “chronically unmatched” and deep in debt.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/...m public service loan forgiveness. [/QUOTE]

http://

 

[250orbust]

‘I Am Worth It’: Why Thousands of Doctors in America Can’t Get a Job

Medical schools are producing more graduates, but residency programs haven’t kept up, leaving thousands of young doctors “chronically unmatched” and deep in debt.

‘I Am Worth It’: Why Thousands of Doctors in America Can’t Get a Job (Published 2021)

Medical schools are producing more graduates, but residency programs haven’t kept up, leaving thousands of young doctors “chronically unmatched” and deep in debt.

www.nytimes.com

The chasm is going to get bigger and bigger

 

[DNAJB6]

It is from Step 1, but my understanding was this woman had completed 3 years of training, and thus had to have done Step 1 before her 7 year hiatus

Maybe we're thinking of different people. I thought were talking about a M2 who withdrew for poor academics. This thread has so many tangents.

 

[IM/Addiction Doc]

‘I Am Worth It’: Why Thousands of Doctors in America Can’t Get a Job

Medical schools are producing more graduates, but residency programs haven’t kept up, leaving thousands of young doctors “chronically unmatched” and deep in debt.

‘I Am Worth It’: Why Thousands of Doctors in America Can’t Get a Job (Published 2021)

Medical schools are producing more graduates, but residency programs haven’t kept up, leaving thousands of young doctors “chronically unmatched” and deep in debt.

www.nytimes.com

The huge gap in her training would be a red flag for any applicant, regardless of where she went to school.

Anybody suggesting that federal loans should be cut off to Caribbean schools is completely out of touch with reality. Are there predatory schools? Absolutely. But there are also schools like Ross and SGU that, while expensive, offer a solid education, good clinical rotations, and excellent match rate.
I went to Ross, studied hard, crushed my boards and had no trouble matching at all, in fact I matched into a very competitive program. Now, 5 years out of residency I am faculty at one of the top institutions on the country (ironically, one of the schools that shot me down when I applied for medical school), with a recent promotion to a leadership position. I am literally teaching at a program that wouldn’t give me the time of day as a Med school applicant.

Nobody ever asks me where I went to school. What matters is where you match for residency and what your specialty is. That’s it. To get there you will need high board scores, higher than US grads, but it is beyond doable for anybody who is smart enough to be in medical school. Those that aren’t will either drop out or score low on boards. And even those that score low still usually find a place that will take them (FM). All of my friends that I went to school with matched and are doing extremely well. It’s all about getting back what you put in. Do your research, realize there are sketchy schools, but a 2 or 3 Caribbean programs are legitimate and will prepare you if you are willing to work hard.
So enough with the anti-Caribbean nonsense. Not all schools are the same.

 

[HopeP]

The huge gap in her training would be a red flag for any applicant, regardless of where she went to school.

Anybody suggesting that federal loans should be cut off to Caribbean schools is completely out of touch with reality. Are there predatory schools? Absolutely. But there are also schools like Ross and SGU that, while expensive, offer a solid education, good clinical rotations, and excellent match rate.
I went to Ross, studies hard, crushed my boards and had no trouble matching at all, in fact I matched into a very competitive program. Now, 5 years out of residency I am faculty at one of the top institutions on the country, with a recent promotion to a leadership position. Nobody ever asked me where I went to school. What matters is where you match for residency and what your specialty is. That’s it. To get there you will need high board scores, higher than US grads, but it is beyond doable for anybody who is smart enough to be in medical school. Those that aren’t will either drop out or score low on boards. And even those that score low still usually find a place that will take them (FM). All of my friends that I went to school with matched and are doing extremely well. It’s all about getting back what you put in.


so enough with the anti-Caribbean nonsense.

kudos to your achievements, but you can't overlook "But the match rate for Americans who study at medical schools abroad is far lower, with just 61 percent matching into residency spots."

 

[DNAJB6]

yeah, so the only people who really give a bowel movement are premeds and high academics

Like residency directors?

 

[Mad Jack]

The huge gap in her training would be a red flag for any applicant, regardless of where she went to school.

Anybody suggesting that federal loans should be cut off to Caribbean schools is completely out of touch with reality. Are there predatory schools? Absolutely. But there are also schools like Ross and SGU that, while expensive, offer a solid education, good clinical rotations, and excellent match rate.
I went to Ross, studies hard, crushed my boards and had no trouble matching at all, in fact I matched into a very competitive program. Now, 5 years out of residency I am faculty at one of the top institutions on the country, with a recent promotion to a leadership position. Nobody ever asked me where I went to school. What matters is where you match for residency and what your specialty is. That’s it. To get there you will need high board scores, higher than US grads, but it is beyond doable for anybody who is smart enough to be in medical school. Those that aren’t will either drop out or score low on boards. And even those that score low still usually find a place that will take them (FM). All of my friends that I went to school with matched and are doing extremely well. It’s all about getting back what you put in.


so enough with the anti-Caribbean nonsense.

The loans should be held to the same standards of all international medical school loans, which they are not currently. A loophole was created specifically for them due to lobbying. Some politicians are already attempting to address this:

Durbin Introduces Legislation to Ensure All Foreign Medical Schools are Held to Same Standards | U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois

The Official U.S. Senate website of Dick Durbin

www.durbin.senate.gov

I'm not anti-Caribbean. I'm pro-responsible use of US tax dollars. When schools are held to lower standards and taxpayers end up footing the bill to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in uncollected loans, well that is a problem to me. It also destroys the lives of those that do not match, so I would want a minimum match amd completion percentage across the board for all foreign schools to ensure taxpayer dollars aren't going directly into the pockets of for-profit corporates with dubious benefit to the government or US citizens

 

[LittleBrother]

I'm up for not "fixing" this.

The match rate for US schools is really hight. People from international schools do match. There is plenty of information about Carib schools on the internet. If you want to take the risks then go to a Carib school. But if you end up throwing away 300k b/c you didn't do any basic research then I'm really not that interested in having you as my physician. Seriosuly, why should I trust you if you can't even make a basically-informed decision about your own life or finances?

 

[Tinyhandz]

This article is a good reminder of why I unsubscribed from the NYT a year ago. What a joke of an article and if I didn’t have any background of how carrebien schools worked, I would have believed the article.

 

[cerebral edema]

. If you ever see a lone IMG among US MDs on a residency roster just quickly search their last name and you're bound to find their mom/dad an attending within the department.

I come from a poor white family with no connections, went to Ross, 99% on all Steps, applied to 10 programs, matched first-choice, 99% on neurology RITE, board certified, and currently working an academic job. So no, sometimes if you see an IMG succeeding, it’s due to their hard work, and not family connections.

 

[Tinyhandz]

Abolish MCAT, P/F for grades and USMLE is the direction medical schools are going. Pretty soon we will have lottery system or simply based on privileged or disadvantaged status only.

That or medical schools will literally only take high GPA students from IVY leagues and top schools only. Then there will be an article how there needs to be more equity in that.

 

[Vivid_Quail]

I come from a poor white family with no connections, went to Ross, 99% on all Steps, applied to 10 programs, matched first-choice, 99% on neurology RITE, board certified, and currently working an academic job. So no, sometimes if you see an IMG succeeding, it’s due to their hard work, and not family connections.

Congrats on your success. You are the exception to the exception...a Caribbean unicorn.

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

Congrats on your success. You are the exception to the exception...a Caribbean unicorn.

or N=1 in SDN lingo.

 

[IM/Addiction Doc]

I will strongly disagree with the statement that they have "excellent match rates". Analysis of numbers from SGU own website shows that in 2019, 76% of the graduating class got placed into residency with 29% thru non-match. This means only 47% of the graduating class matched into a residency slot. (see my analysis Carribean medical schools?) This does not take into account of their attrition rate so the actual "success rate" (ie starting as M1, graduating, and getting any residency slot) is lower.

I will vehemently disagree about availability and use of federally back student loans at any for profit school as the school assume no financial risk for the students success. When a student enrolls and gets a loan, the schools gets paid. If the student subsequently drops out, the school has gotten paid and the student assumes the debt and possibly the tax payer. Taking in students who are under or not qualified and drops out increases the profit of the school.

SGU was valued in 2014 for purposes of sale at a Billion (with a B) dollars. The founders sold it to a Canadian investment firm for officially $750 million dollars and an additionally $250 "special dividend" via loan to themselves. Adtalem, owners of Ross and AUC, just had their quarterly stock report where they proudly show that enrollment has increased by 5.5% so invest with us. I have followed the hard political lobbying work that SGU, Ross and others have done to secure these loans all the way back to the predecessor of Federal HHS, the HEW. As a taxpayer, I am very much against these schools as I ultimately pay for their profits by the failure of students who shouldnt be in medical school in the first place

If those federal loans were not available, I wouldn’t have been able to go to medical school. This is also the case for many of my colleagues.

Congrats on your success. You are the exception to the exception...a Caribbean unicorn.

Thank you, but it’s not that rare of a thing. As I said, my core group of friends in school all matched into the specialties they wanted. My roommate from Med school matched into general surgery and is also faculty at large center. Granted, I surrounded myself with like minded people early on, avoided negativity on forums like SDN, kept my head down and worked hard. I would hardly call myself a unicorn, I just knew the scores I had to get on boards and made it happen.

 

[Goro]

If those federal loans were not available, I wouldn’t have been able to go to medical school. This is also the case for many of my colleagues.

You could have taken out loans to go to a post-bac or SMP to repair the likely damage to your GPA and/or MCAT score. I applaud your success, but you're still a Lotto winner.

 

[LittleBrother]

I will vehemently disagree about availability and use of federally back student loans at any for profit school as the school assume no financial risk for the students success. When a student enrolls and gets a loan, the schools gets paid. If the student subsequently drops out, the school has gotten paid and the student assumes the debt and possibly the tax payer. Taking in students who are under or not qualified and drops out increases the profit of the school.

Isn't this the case for pretty much any school? My sister doesn't exactly have a loan guarantee for her Masters in Art History that she will never pay off. Plenty of kids get sucked into the education racket and double down after they fail to find meaningful employment after undergrad.

What exactly are the Carib schools doing that any US undergrad or Masters program isn't already doing?

 

[Dr.SPAC3MAN]

If those federal loans were not available, I wouldn’t have been able to go to medical school. This is also the case for many of my colleagues.

Thank you, but it’s not that rare of a thing. As I said, my core group of friends in school all matched into the specialties they wanted. My roommate from Med school matched into general surgery and is also faculty at large center. Granted, I surrounded myself with like minded people early on, avoided negativity on forums like SDN, kept my head down and worked hard. I would hardly call myself a unicorn, I just knew the scores I had to get on boards and made it happen.

Of course, everything is a number's game. there will be a % of students at low-tier schools do great things and a % of students at prestigious schools fail out. These numbers are worthy of consideration. The question regarding Caribbean schools is how many students need to go into insurmountable debt and severely disrupt their lives before the core issue (over-acceptance of students who will most likely not succeed) of Caribbean schools is addressed and resolved? I am glad that you got to live your dream, but there are countless others who go into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and several years of their life if they fail out before even getting to sit for Step 1.

 

[VincentAdultman]

I like do like a lot of stuff NYT does. That article was...not one of them.

 

[Vivid_Quail]

If those federal loans were not available, I wouldn’t have been able to go to medical school. This is also the case for many of my colleagues.

Thank you, but it’s not that rare of a thing. As I said, my core group of friends in school all matched into the specialties they wanted. My roommate from Med school matched into general surgery and is also faculty at large center. Granted, I surrounded myself with like minded people early on, avoided negativity on forums like SDN, kept my head down and worked hard. I would hardly call myself a unicorn, I just knew the scores I had to get on boards and made it happen.

Uh...a Caribbean student who makes 99 percentile on Step 1, 2 and 3 is objectively a unicorn. Anyone who does that is a unicorn, so you are like a rainbow unicorn since you did that coming out of the Caribbean.

Not sure why you feel like you have to defend yourself from claims that you are an exceptional person. There is no reason to deny it. It is a compliment and objectively true.

 

[HopeP]

I will strongly disagree with the statement that they have "excellent match rates". Analysis of numbers from SGU own website shows that in 2019, 76% of the graduating class got placed into residency with 29% thru non-match. This means only 47% of the graduating class matched into a residency slot. (see my analysis Carribean medical schools?) This does not take into account of their attrition rate so the actual "success rate" (ie starting as M1, graduating, and getting any residency slot) is lower.

I will vehemently disagree about availability and use of federally back student loans at any for profit school as the school assume no financial risk for the students success. When a student enrolls and gets a loan, the schools gets paid. If the student subsequently drops out, the school has gotten paid and the student assumes the debt and possibly the tax payer. Taking in students who are under or not qualified and drops out increases the profit of the school.

SGU was valued in 2014 for purposes of sale at a Billion (with a B) dollars. The founders sold it to a Canadian investment firm for officially $750 million dollars and an additionally $250 "special dividend" via loan to themselves. Adtalem, owners of Ross and AUC, just had their quarterly stock report where they proudly show that enrollment has increased by 5.5% so invest with us. I have followed the hard political lobbying work that SGU, Ross and others have done to secure these loans all the way back to the predecessor of Federal HHS, the HEW. As a taxpayer, I am very much against these schools as I ultimately pay for their profits by the failure of students who shouldnt be in medical school in the first place

Problem is students who enrolled to these schools do not even understand business nature of school, wonder every one talks about read school mission, talks about it in essays, bring it in interview etc.. Wonder these students even read and understood mission of those schools.

 

[VincentAdultman]

I come from a poor white family with no connections, went to Ross, 99% on all Steps, applied to 10 programs, matched first-choice, 99% on neurology RITE, board certified, and currently working an academic job. So no, sometimes if you see an IMG succeeding, it’s due to their hard work, and not family connections.

If you got 99th percentile and not just a score of “99” on the steps then your story isn’t really applicable to the vast majority of students who go carriberan

 

[Vivid_Quail]

1) the Caribbean and other off-shore schools are part of "for-profit" companies where the vast majority of US undergraduate and graduate programs are chartered as non-profit/educational organizations. There are no investors waiting to make profit.
2) All US undergraduate, graduate, and professional have accreditation standards that include admissions standards. The Carin schools rely mostly of the two metrics of pulse rate and credit score for admissions

The crazy thing is that you don't even need a good credit score to get US government student loans--the feds don't care about the numerical credit score. You just need to have not defaulted on debt or declared bankruptcy.

Here are the actual disqualifying factors:
1. you have one or more debts with a total combined outstanding balance greater than $2,085 that are 90
or more days delinquent as of the date of the credit report, or that have been placed in collection or
charged off (written off) during the two years preceding the date of the credit report; or
2. during the five years preceding the date of the credit report, you have been subject to a

• default determination,
• discharge of debts in bankruptcy,
• foreclosure,
• repossession,
• tax lien,
• wage garnishment, or
• write-off of a federal student aid debt

 

[Ms Procrastinator]

Anybody suggesting that federal loans should be cut off to Caribbean schools is completely out of touch with reality. Are there predatory schools? Absolutely. But there are also schools like Ross and SGU that, while expensive, offer a solid education, good clinical rotations, and excellent match rate.
I went to Ross, studied hard, crushed my boards and had no trouble matching at all, in fact I matched into a very competitive program. Now, 5 years out of residency I am faculty at one of the top institutions on the country (ironically, one of the schools that shot me down when I applied for medical school), with a recent promotion to a leadership position. I am literally teaching at a program that wouldn’t give me the time of day as a Med school applicant.

So enough with the anti-Caribbean nonsense. Not all schools are the same.

There's a saying where I'm from, "A cat doesn't have the same luck as a dog". I need you and other Caribbean graduates to understand that not all Caribbean graduates will have the same luck as you. You mentioned that not all Caribbean schools are the same, please realize that this applies for students as well. You seemed to have graduated from this school a while ago and had great luck, but this will not be the same for all graduates, especially now. Times have changed and so have standards. You can't use your experience, especially an old one, to try and convince someone else to gamble with their lives. There are cold, hard facts out there that prove that Caribbean schools have high attrition rates and low match rates, your feelings don't change that.

 

[deleted1023831]

I get that Caribbean schools are not ideal. But regardless of schools, the end result is that we currently have a huge doctor shortage and approx. 1/3 of practicing physicians in the U.S. are foreign-educated (Foreign-Trained Doctors are Critical to Serving Many U.S. Communities). The root of the problem is the lack of funding for residency slots. And we NEED to have our voices be heard in policy-making if we want more seats in medical schools.

 

[Goro]

I get that Caribbean schools are not ideal. But regardless of schools, the end result is that we currently have a huge doctor shortage and approx. 1/3 of practicing physicians in the U.S. are foreign-educated (Foreign-Trained Doctors are Critical to Serving Many U.S. Communities). The root of the problem is the lack of funding for residency slots. And we NEED to have our voices be heard in policy-making if we want more seats in medical schools.

We do not have a doctor shortage, but rather, a maldistribution. Over the past decade tons of MD and DO schools have opened or increased their class sizes to make up some of this slack.

Thus, as the number of domestic grads increases, and with Step I going P/F, IMGs will be in a much worse situation.

Community needs will still not overcome the PD bottleneck, either.

 

[IM/Addiction Doc]

There's a saying where I'm from, "A cat doesn't have the same luck as a dog". I need you and other Caribbean graduates to understand that not all Caribbean graduates will have the same luck as you. You mentioned that not all Caribbean schools are the same, please realize that this applies for students as well. You seemed to have graduated from this school a while ago and had great luck, but this will not be the same for all graduates, especially now. Times have changed and so have standards. You can't use your experience, especially an old one, to try and convince someone else to gamble with their lives. There are cold, hard facts out there that prove that Caribbean schools have high attrition rates and low match rates, your feelings don't change that.

That’s fair, and your point is valid. I did graduate a few years back, so things could have changed a lot over the past 8 years. I haven’t been paying close attention to the stats since I graduated, but these conversations have been going on for years and years, and I can say first hand that my institution matches quite a few people from Ross, SGU, and AUC each year. also to your point: you are correct, my experience is not guaranteed, but it certainly wasn’t luck. I plotted out exactly what I needed to do and became obsessive about school.

I would say that if one has honestly assessed their academic abilities, they can go to one of the “big 3” carribean schools with at least some degree of confidence that they will match into something... Probably not neurosurgery or derm (though personally know people whoi), but internal medicine is easily attainable, along with the many fellowship options that come with it.
If someone is too immature to properly assess their academic abilities, or too in denial about their shortcomings, they will fail, and deserve to fail.
No institution guarantees anything. Paying money for a degree is always a calculated risk. In my opinion, paying tuition to one of the above mentioned schools is a reasonable risk as long as one has objectively assessed their abilities.

If you were to look at the match rate among the cohort that graduate from carribean schools with honors I think you would find very high percentages, which would correlate with USMLE scores

 

[Vivid_Quail]

I get that Caribbean schools are not ideal. But regardless of schools, the end result is that we currently have a huge doctor shortage and approx. 1/3 of practicing physicians in the U.S. are foreign-educated (Foreign-Trained Doctors are Critical to Serving Many U.S. Communities). The root of the problem is the lack of funding for residency slots. And we NEED to have our voices be heard in policy-making if we want more seats in medical schools.

There are 11,000+ more residency spots than US MD + DO applicants in the match.

We don't have a "huge doctor shortage." We have a doctor distribution problem, both in terms of geography and specialties. There are plenty of doctors in any major US city.

Countries like Norway, Australia and Sweden have 50-100% more doctors per capita than the US. They still have major problems recruiting physicians to rural areas and primary care. Those countries have multiple year waiting periods to get into non-rural/non-primary care residency programs and they STILL have problems getting enough physicians to rural areas and into primary care specialties. Norway and Sweden even have almost no difference in pay between specialties (derm vs CT surgery vs peds vs family medicine all earn the same), and, once again, they still have problems recruiting enough primary care and/or rural physicians. The exception to the equal pay in the Nordic countries is this: the highest paid doctors in Norway/Sweden/Finland are rural FM doctors, not neurosurgeons or CT surgeons, and they still don't have enough rural FM coverage. Denmark is a big of an odd-ball because it is so small, so not too many rural and remote areas (but don't try to convince a Dane of that fact lol).

 

[Select All That Apply]

I would say that if one has honestly assessed their academic abilities, they can go to one of the “big 3” carribean schools with at least some degree of confidence that they will match into something... Probably not neurosurgery or derm (though personally know people whoi), but internal medicine is easily attainable, along with the many fellowship options that come with it.
If someone is too immature to properly assess their academic abilities, or too in denial about their shortcomings, they will fail, and deserve to fail.
No institution guarantees anything. Paying money for a degree is always a calculated risk. In my opinion, paying tuition to one of the above mentioned schools is a reasonable risk as long as one has objectively assessed their abilities.

Students in Caribbean schools skew towards being immature and in denial which is why there are now preliminary programs Caribbean schools have at M0 before they decide to even sign up students for M1. For Ross this is MERP and SGU this was their CFP program. And even with MERP and CFP programs in class, attrition at M1-M2 still remains high among students. The more benign conclusion is that Caribbean programs still don't understand how to select the correct students to matriculate through the program, the more cynical conclusion is that Caribbean programs intentionally select for underperforming students to milk them for education and then wash them out of the system. The naive assumption means that these institutions still remain ignorant to their own incompetence over several years whereas the other premise insists that they are aware and are continuing a predatory business model. Both conclusions are awful from a risk taking perspective to place any investment into them.

Most Caribbean students are going to be weeded out of the system making it a bad risk proposition for them when they have lost both opportunity cost and financial cost. Most Caribbean students could have potentially spent that time considering alternative careers in the healthcare sector e.g. nursing that likely has better returns for them putting in the same amount of work they would have on attempting to complete a Caribbean degree. Finally, there is no way to honestly assess whether someone will be able to perform in medical school as a medical school curriculum is not comparative to an undergrad curriculum based on volume of information, approach to studying, and discipline required to learn. GPA and MCAT are predictors for projected success in order to ascertain what is a reasonable risk, however people who skew highly on those metrics do not matriculate into Caribbean programs unless they have red flags elsewhere that prevented them from applying to programs within the US.

 

[Mad Jack]

If those federal loans were not available, I wouldn’t have been able to go to medical school. This is also the case for many of my colleagues.

Thank you, but it’s not that rare of a thing. As I said, my core group of friends in school all matched into the specialties they wanted. My roommate from Med school matched into general surgery and is also faculty at large center. Granted, I surrounded myself with like minded people early on, avoided negativity on forums like SDN, kept my head down and worked hard. I would hardly call myself a unicorn, I just knew the scores I had to get on boards and made it happen.

Why should Caribbean schools be held to a lower standard for loans than other international medical schools? I just want them to be held to those same standards that were put into place to protect taxpayers