37+ MCAT = Caribbean School = Plastic Surgery Residency

[DermViser]

Today I'm here to present a different view on caribbean schools. Lets say a student scores a 38 on the mcat, that is a 99 percentile score. Someone with that much intelligence is destined to go to a US medical school and do well on there step one. Lets say that same student goes to a caribbean school instead. Lets say this caribbean school assign grades based on your performance against your classmates. Caribbean schools are usually filled with people with mcat score that range form 19-22 (and very low GPA's), that score range could indicate poor test taking skills. Unfortunately medical school is filled with test. This means that someone with a a 38 mcat could easily out score his classmates with less effort then them. My theory is the amount of effort will be so low that he will have a significantly larger amount of time to study for his step one (he could start MS1) than any other US medical student. This could result in a score of 270+ and he would just waltz right into a plastic residentcy ( even with the bias toward US students).



Big fish small pound


Correction 38 +

And your theory would be completely and utterly wrong. Also,

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[DermViser]

I think that is unfair... Shouldn't they use the same metrics to judge these applicants? like board scores, grades, research etc...

 

[mrh125]

you'd be basically be like the johnny depp of the caribbean, a star captain in an area filled with mediocre pirates. Avast, ye matey don't be surprised when yer ship sinks.

 

[listener23]

.

 

[Optimus-Prime]

Say what you want, at least they're pretty...

I lived in Grenada for six months while the pops was in school there

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

Lets say a student scores a 38 on the mcat, that is a 99 percentile score. Someone with that much intelligence is destined to go to a US medical school and do well on there step one.

LOL I wish. I had a 39 and I got rejected everywhere.

 

[IL Pre Med]

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth...

 

[Fabio Lanzoni]

LOL I wish. I had a 39 and I got rejected everywhere.

Should've applied carib

 

[sobored]

The radonc PD at my school told me personally that Caribbean applicants just "add to the denominator" regarding percentage of applicants interviewed (we were having a conversation about what it takes to get into radonc and what kind of applicants they interview/turn down). I assume it's like that for many, if not all of the competitive specialties.

 

[gettheleadout]

LOL I wish. I had a 39 and I got rejected everywhere.

You can PM me if you want but whoa, what? I haven't seen a post from you in a while (not to say you haven't posted) but I just remember you coming up on applying and then I never saw a follow up. What was your cycle like? What do you think went wrong?

Edit: Nevermind, found your WAMC thread.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Sigh* the only real difference you may get is higher pre-clinical grades, which virtually all mid-tier programs don't care about. Your USMLE will still be relative to everyone else: US MD, DO and FMG, except that the threshold of equivalency will be different (Lets just say hypothetically US MD 200 = DO 215 = FMG/Carib 230) and we know from PD surveys that a good number of programs won't even interview outside of US MD regardless of your score. They can literally press 1 button and never see any DO, FMG or Carib applications. For the record the number of programs interviewing DO are much greater than FMG/Carib.

It's stuff like this why many medical students start to get a distaste for pre-meds.

Today I'm here to present a different view on caribbean schools. Lets say a student scores a 38 on the mcat, that is a 99 percentile score. Someone with that much intelligence is destined to go to a US medical school and do well on there step one. Lets say that same student goes to a caribbean school instead. Lets say this caribbean school assign grades based on your performance against your classmates. Caribbean schools are usually filled with people with mcat score that range form 19-22 (and very low GPA's), that score range could indicate poor test taking skills. Unfortunately medical school is filled with test. This means that someone with a a 38 mcat could easily out score his classmates with less effort then them. My theory is the amount of effort will be so low that he will have a significantly larger amount of time to study for his step one (he could start MS1) than any other US medical student. This could result in a score of 270+ . At this point he would just waltz right into a plastic residentcy ( even with the bias toward US students).

Big fish small pound

Correction 38 +

 

[mrh125]

LOL I wish. I had a 39 and I got rejected everywhere.

holy hell, where did you apply? what were your ECs, gpa?

 

[wjs010]

Let's say a person with a 38 is applying Harvard and would never choose Carribean.

 

[gettheleadout]

holy hell, where did you apply? what were your ECs, gpa?

3.78 cGPA, 3.76 sGPA, 39S MCAT, 18 schools (~ all MD/PhD apps)

 

[Xenoblade]

Sorry but this is a really dumb thought-experiment. First off, you're assuming that students with 37 MCATs are naturally more gifted than students with lower MCATs. I know that the MCAT the star around which your pre-med solar system rotates, but you'll be shocked to hear that no one gives a crap about it once you start med school. The slate is clean. I know people who scored in the 40s on their MCATs and I, despite my lowly 35, outscored them by a standard deviation on Step 1. The correlation between MCAT and Step 1 is pretty weak, and you're assuming a lot if you think having a 37 MCAT automatically makes you a top-dog in med school.

Secondly, your notions about being the smartest guy in the classroom means you can slack off and still set the curve is pretty naive. Those people do exist, but they're naturally gifted. It's not like getting a 37+ MCAT lets you into the "slacker genius" club. Also, the idea that this slacking off gives you more time to "prep for Step 1" shows that you don't really know much about how med school works. I won't hold it against you, as you are a pre-med. More time studying =/= higher Step 1 score. If it did you all would be studying for it now.

Next, a massive Step 1 score doesn't off-set the Caribbean stigma. The most prestigious and competitive residency programs in any given field, as well as the entirety of some fields (like ENT, urology, integrated plastics, derm), will never look at a Caribbean grad's application. They can fill their spots with well-qualified US MDs any day of the week. Step 1 score is not the end-all-be-all, and getting an astronomical score doesn't guarantee you get any residency that you want. You also have to be a well-rounded candidate in other ways, and one of those ways is where you go to school. At top tier residencies, being a Caribbean grad alone cuts you from the pack. That's just the way it is.

Side bar!:

Let's talk about something actually productive. After reading your posts, I can obviously tell that you know what you are doing. You wrote:
"More time studying =/= higher Step 1 score. If it did you all would be studying for it now."

What do you suggest then for scoring high step 1s?

 

[Law2Doc]

Side bar!:

Let's talk about something actually productive. After reading your posts, I can obviously tell that you know what you are doing. You wrote:
"More time studying =/= higher Step 1 score. If it did you all would be studying for it now."

What do you suggest then for scoring high step 1s?

I think more time studying for step 1 absolutely helps your score. Test taking ability also is key. But having strong med school coursework as the foundation also helps your score. Most med schools do a pretty good job of teaching the material so its not like you are going to go someplace where you can ace your tests with half the effort, letting you have more time on the test. Its all studying for that test to some extent, whether you are studying your coursework or first aid. To do well ideally you are doing both. What some offshore places definitely do allow, because they tend to have internal hurdles and bottlenecks before you can get all your necessary rotations, is extra time to study for these tests, so often the scores from foreign grads actually are actually decent. Doesn't matter though, they still don't get looked at equally. You will just have the best score many programs never see because they set the ERAS filters to only show them applicants from US programs.

 

[kuroichigo]

I feel like people really devalue the Carribean schools. I had a friend who went there and he said most of his friends and himself got around a ~250 and are all going to great residency programs now. I am sure you have seen threads of people getting 35+ MCATs and not getting accepted, those people tend to go to the Carribean too and even those schools are becoming competitive.

Either way you have to work your ass off, theres no "easy way out" when it comes to finishing medical school

 

[Law2Doc]

I feel like people really devalue the Carribean schools. I had a friend who went there and he said most of his friends and himself got around a ~250 and are all going to great residency programs now. ....

Statistics don't lie. 93-94% of US allo grads match each year, and there's minimal attrition. Offshore grad match rates have been as low as 45% and thats AFTER very high attrition. And the phasing out of prematches and the replacement of the scramble with soap, at the same time US enrollment is being ramped up made things even bleaker going forward. So the odds for a Caribbean student are horrible, and getting worse, regardless of how your friend did. If he claims lots of his classmates didn't have a bad time in the match or that many didnt end up in one year dead end prelim spots, he's just lying to you and maybe it's time to find a nicer friend.

 

[BestDoctorEver]

Many in SDN have no problem about PDs discriminating against students from carib and/or offshore schools, but many of the same people complain about URMs having some kind of an advantage when applying to med school.

 

[Kaputt]

Like always, take what you read here with a grain of salt. A lot of people here post based on what they heard.

I know a number of people that went caribb and did well on Step 1 and landed good residencies. One of which had a 255 and is now in radiology. It's pure nonsense that good scores from caribb are not even considered

Radiology, as an entire field, is not overly competitive anymore. The top programs are still very competitive, but the sheer # of programs out there and waning US grad interest leaves spots open for offshore grads. (I matched into rads this past application cycle).

So the big question is "where" this person landed. There are many bad radiology residencies out there.

To reinforce the point I and many others have been making in this thread, a 255 from a US MD school can get you interviews at radiology programs at Hopkins, MGH, and WashU. A 255 from a Caribbean school gets you interviews at low-tier community hospitals or low-tier academic places that the US grads don't want.

Lowly 35?! Many of us pre-meds do not consider that a lowly score lol.

That was a humble brag...

It was a joke, about how everyone and their mother on this site has a 37+

I have absolutely no pride or arrogance over the fact that I got a 35 on the MCAT. It would be like you bragging about your SAT score. No one cares.

 

[Kaputt]

Side bar!:

Let's talk about something actually productive. After reading your posts, I can obviously tell that you know what you are doing. You wrote:
"More time studying =/= higher Step 1 score. If it did you all would be studying for it now."

What do you suggest then for scoring high step 1s?

- Do well in the preclinical years and you'll have a solid working understanding of the concepts. Don't touch First Aid until you're a second year, at least.
- Wisely utilize resources...don't buy every review book under the sun. Less is more.
- Be a great test taker, in that you have to be able to think quickly on your feet and make few mistakes. This is what gets most people. The people who do best are the strongest at fact-checking themselves on the fly and making very few stupid mistakes.

If you prepare well enough, which nearly everyone who is motivated does, you could answer most questions right. It's not the difficult questions that make the difference, in my opinion, but your ability to get the easy questions right without screwing up.

You can't "will" yourself into a 270 or beyond...my boy Phloston tried over a long period of time but didn't quite get there (http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/my-usmle-step1-thoughts-and-experience-by-phloston.977497/)

 

[Law2Doc]

Many in SDN have no problem about PDs discriminating against students from carib and/or offshore schools, but many of the same people complain about URMs having some kind of an advantage when applying to med school.

Apples and oranges. Offshore training is not identical to US training so there's valid grounds to "discriminate". Some of us have rotated to community hospitals that allow some of the big name Caribbean schools to pay for rotations and honestly those rotations are pretty weak. So if I was a PD I'd feel a lot more comfortable with someone who did well at a rotation with LCME oversight because I'd be more confident that I knew what this persons baseline was. And know what I was getting. The USMLE isn't the only barometer used, so doing well at that is nice but doesn't make one equally schooled. It gives a PD a sense of how someone might do on the in service exams, but that's not the primary issue here, and is less likely to give the PD headaches than knowing how someone will be on the wards. So again we aren't discriminating against the person, we are discriminating against the lack of accreditation/oversight and what that means.

My favorite example is the TV brand example. Say you were buying a new TV. One option is from a brand you never heard of, from some foreign country. It has lots if bells and whistles, but you've never heard of anyone buying one. The other option is the base sony model. Fewer bells and whistles, but you've had one before and it works fine. Price is the same -- which do you buy? Accreditation means the person had equivalent real rotations and is ready for the wards. That's what PDs are basing their "discrimination" on. They are favoring the name brand because that gives them a comfort level that no Step 1 score can ever give.

 

[Kaputt]

I think more time studying for step 1 absolutely helps your score. Test taking ability also is key. But having strong med school coursework as the foundation also helps your score. Most med schools do a pretty good job of teaching the material so its not like you are going to go someplace where you can ace your tests with half the effort, letting you have more time on the test. Its all studying for that test to some extent, whether you are studying your coursework or first aid. To do well ideally you are doing both. What some offshore places definitely do allow, because they tend to have internal hurdles and bottlenecks before you can get all your necessary rotations, is extra time to study for these tests, so often the scores from foreign grads actually are actually decent. Doesn't matter though, they still don't get looked at equally. You will just have the best score many programs never see because they set the ERAS filters to only show them applicants from US programs.

Everyone will peak when they're studying for Step 1, and beyond that, no more studying is going to help you get a higher score. Everyone learns the content well enough that only a handful of questions on the exam day will be a surprise. It's that test-taking ability that really pushes people into the extreme end of scores (270+)...and you can't just learn that stuff. Like I said in the above post, it's the ability to get all the easy questions right without making mistakes, rather than the ability to get all the difficult/left-field questions right.

 

[kuroichigo]

Statistics don't lie. 93-94% of US allo grads match each year, and there's minimal attrition. Offshore grad match rates have been as low as 45% and thats AFTER very high attrition. And the phasing out of prematches and the replacement of the scramble with soap, at the same time US enrollment is being ramped up made things even bleaker going forward. So the odds for a Caribbean student are horrible, and getting worse, regardless of how your friend did. If he claims lots of his classmates didn't have a bad time in the match or that many didnt end up in one year dead end prelim spots, he's just lying to you and maybe it's time to find a nicer friend.

I don't think he is lying when I actually see him at the hospital working...It ranged from places like Drexel, Georgetown and Miami hospitals and I've seen picture of them all at their work place so no, I can guarantee you it was true.

I agree 100% it is difficult, but the people who go there are not just those at the bottom of the applicant pool. There are a good number that just don't get in for other reasons besides academics, like not enough extracurricular or research, like my friend.

 

[mimelim]

I feel like people really devalue the Carribean schools. I had a friend who went there and he said most of his friends and himself got around a ~250 and are all going to great residency programs now. I am sure you have seen threads of people getting 35+ MCATs and not getting accepted, those people tend to go to the Carribean too and even those schools are becoming competitive.

Either way you have to work your ass off, theres no "easy way out" when it comes to finishing medical school

Can you define "great residency programs"? Not saying that its never happened, just have never seen it.

Just as an aside, we had 4 pre-lims from the gen surg program at my institution and the one next door who were Caribbean students. None of them have jobs next year.

 

[kuroichigo]

Can you define "great residency programs"? Not saying that its never happened, just have never seen it.

Just as an aside, we had 4 pre-lims from the gen surg program at my institution and the one next door who were Caribbean students. None of them have jobs next year.

Internal Medicine, Dermatology and Radiology and one guy was Anesthesiology.

I have no idea how the pre-lim process works since I am far away from that, but does what school you went to and your scores matter after you already started your first year as a resident? I would think all that matters is how you did during that year, but again I have no background knowledge on that!

 

[mimelim]

Internal Medicine, Dermatology and Radiology and one guy was Anesthesiology.

I have no idea how the pre-lim process works since I am far away from that, but does what school you went to and your scores matter after you already started your first year as a resident? I would think all that matters is how you did during that year, but again I have no background knowledge on that!

Those are specialties, not residency programs. There are competitive programs in every one of those specialties (and every derm program is competitive). This is the problem with this argument. You say, "great residency programs" without really knowing what that means. It is a struggle to come out of the Caribbean across the board. The goal of the vast majority of US MD students is to get into their first choice program in their desired specialty. Since US MD students are a diverse group and aren't all gunning for the same spots, ie @DermViser and I would be miserable if you flipped the fields that we are in, people have a decent shot getting into somewhere reasonably high on their list. This is not true for the Caribbean.

But, yes, once you start residency, where you went to school or your scores matter very little. If you are a prelim, it doesn't matter what school you went to. If you end up a categorical resident, you have to do something really stupid to lose your spot.

 

[DermViser]

Can you define "great residency programs"? Not saying that its never happened, just have never seen it.

Just as an aside, we had 4 pre-lims from the gen surg program at my institution and the one next door who were Caribbean students. None of them have jobs next year.

Just curious, were the Carribbean surgery prelims good? Or was there just not room to take them into the categorical residency?

 

[Law2Doc]

Just curious, were the Carribbean surgery prelims good? Or was there just not room to take them into the categorical residency?

There are many more prelim spots than categorical. At some places they take a dozen prelims but they have only two categorical spots per year. These are designated ahead if time and often a prelim can only get into one if a categorical from their year leaves. Otherwise they are back in the match, starting over again, often hoping to repeat intern year as a categorical. And yes their offshore degree looms large every time they go into the match. A very few people make this jump, the vast majority are kind of hosed after the prelim ends, hoping to cobble together enough Time as a reident just to get licensed.

 

[DermViser]

Sorry but this is a really dumb thought-experiment. First off, you're assuming that students with 37 MCATs are naturally more gifted than students with lower MCATs. I know that the MCAT the star around which your pre-med solar system rotates, but you'll be shocked to hear that no one gives a crap about it once you start med school. The slate is clean. I know people who scored in the 40s on their MCATs and I, despite my lowly 35, outscored them by a standard deviation on Step 1. The correlation between MCAT and Step 1 is pretty weak, and you're assuming a lot if you think having a 37 MCAT automatically makes you a top-dog in med school.

Secondly, your notions about being the smartest guy in the classroom means you can slack off and still set the curve is pretty naive. Those people do exist, but they're naturally gifted. It's not like getting a 37+ MCAT lets you into the "slacker genius" club. Also, the idea that this slacking off gives you more time to "prep for Step 1" shows that you don't really know much about how med school works. I won't hold it against you, as you are a pre-med. More time studying =/= higher Step 1 score. If it did you all would be studying for it now.

Next, a massive Step 1 score doesn't off-set the Caribbean stigma. The most prestigious and competitive residency programs in any given field, as well as the entirety of some fields (like ENT, urology, integrated plastics, derm), will never look at a Caribbean grad's application. They can fill their spots with well-qualified US MDs any day of the week. Step 1 score is not the end-all-be-all, and getting an astronomical score doesn't guarantee you get any residency that you want. You also have to be a well-rounded candidate in other ways, and one of those ways is where you go to school. At top tier residencies, being a Caribbean grad alone cuts you from the pack. That's just the way it is.

Calling it a "thought"-experiment is quite generous of you.

 

[Kaputt]

Calling it a "thought"-experiment is quite generous of you.

You know me, I try to lift spirits where I can

 

[mimelim]

Just curious, were the Carribbean surgery prelims good? Or was there just not room to take them into the categorical residency?

Hit or miss. No really really top notch, "gotta have this resident" types, but certainly hard working, reasonably smart individuals. Prelim spots are essentially cheap labor for teaching hospitals. They are willing to work twice the hours of an NP/PA at half the cost for a chance to show their stuff to get a categorical spot at the institution they are at or good enough LOR to get a position somewhere else. Almost universally, the prelims that I've seen become categoricals are FMGs that are fantastic. I mean they are great students, great people, have good English, etc. They busted their ass for two years and absolutely deserved their spot and more. There is no reason a former Caribbean student couldn't do that, but it is a miserable pathway. It also pits someone who couldn't get into US MD/DO against the best FMGs who are for all practical purposes are the best US MD students who happened to be born outside the US.

 

[Redpancreas]

Today I'm here to present a different view on caribbean schools. Lets say a student scores a 38 on the mcat, that is a 99 percentile score. Someone with that much intelligence is destined to go to a US medical school and do well on there step one. Lets say that same student goes to a caribbean school instead. Lets say this caribbean school assign grades based on your performance against your classmates. Caribbean schools are usually filled with people with mcat score that range form 19-22 (and very low GPA's), that score range could indicate poor test taking skills. Unfortunately medical school is filled with test. This means that someone with a a 38 mcat could easily out score his classmates with less effort then them. My theory is the amount of effort will be so low that he will have a significantly larger amount of time to study for his step one (he could start MS1) than any other US medical student. This could result in a score of 270+ . At this point he would just waltz right into a plastic residentcy ( even with the bias toward US students).



Big fish small pound


Correction 38 +

Each of the assumptions/assertions wrong or unsustainable.

1. Why would you wait go through the traditional route to go Carribean? Just pay a large sum and take the mcat as a freshman (if you're smart enough to get a 3-5 on AP bio/chem/physics, you'll do well enough. If you want to go Caribbean, at least cash in on the benefit of saving 4 yrs.

2. Who cares if you out score your classmates? Step 1 scores (standardized nationally) and Clerkships grades (Carribean schools don't focus on this part) determine
Residency selection...

3. If your case wasn't already shattered, consider that most residents directors are aware that Carribean schools are Step 1 scoring machines and really won't care for a 270 Caribbean student over a 220 US student.

 

[alpinism]

Everyone will peak when they're studying for Step 1, and beyond that, no more studying is going to help you get a higher score. Everyone learns the content well enough that only a handful of questions on the exam day will be a surprise. It's that test-taking ability that really pushes people into the extreme end of scores (270+)...and you can't just learn that stuff. Like I said in the above post, it's the ability to get all the easy questions right without making mistakes, rather than the ability to get all the difficult/left-field questions right.

Believe it or not there are quite a few med students out there who passed all their preclinical courses with average grades and who only study 2-3wks for step 1. Remember, SDN is not representative of the general med school population. Not everyone does all of UWorld or even FA for that matter. Some people know they want primary care near their hometown in a noncompetitive location and are more than content with a score in the 220s.

Very, very few med students truly study to their max potential ( i.e. throughly going through and memorizing everything in FA and pathoma as well as doing all 3 major qbanks and NBME practice exams then reviewing all your wrong answers) to do so would require months of intense studying.

I'll agree however that past a certain point you start to plateau (be it 6wks or 10wks) and there is certainly a bit of test taking skill and luck involved in getting a 270+.

 

[Gregor Wiesmann]

Why would you even go to all the trouble of Medical School? Just go around to various Plastic Surgery programs and show them your 37 MCAT.......I'm sure they will you in, no questions asked.

 

[DermViser]

I feel like people really devalue the Carribean schools. I had a friend who went there and he said most of his friends and himself got around a ~250 and are all going to great residency programs now. I am sure you have seen threads of people getting 35+ MCATs and not getting accepted, those people tend to go to the Carribean too and even those schools are becoming competitive.

Either way you have to work your ass off, theres no "easy way out" when it comes to finishing medical school

It is quite well known by PDs that Carribbean medical schools game the system. They teach to the test. That's why they do so well. Not bc they teach basic sciences so well. They're essentially 2 years of commercial test prep, unlike U.S. med schools that are not like that and teach you info. that isn't on boards either.

 

[DermViser]

Believe it or not there are quite a few med students out there who passed all their preclinical courses with average grades and who only study 2-3wks for step 1. Remember, SDN is not representative of the general med school population. Not everyone does all of UWorld or even FA for that matter. Some people know they want primary care near their hometown in a noncompetitive location and are more than content with a score in the 220s.

Very, very few med students truly study to their max potential ( i.e. throughly going through and memorizing everything in FA and pathoma as well as doing all 3 major qbanks and NBME practice exams then reviewing all your wrong answers) to do so would require months of intense studying.

I'll agree however that past a certain point you start to plateau (be it 6wks or 10wks) and there is certainly a bit of test taking skill and luck involved in getting a 270+.

Not to mention each one of us can only hold so much information in our heads. Not everyone is aiming for 240+.

 

[DrEnderW]

In med school, the difference between doing average and being at the top of the class in every subject (as your theoretical student is doing with less work) is holding onto endless small details in an onslaught of material that no one else is putting to memory.

Sure, there are brilliant student that may not study as much and do that well but they are few and far between, even at top programs. Being intelligent won't allow you to recall one sentence in size 9 font below an image from 1 of the 1000 ppt slides you'll be tested on. You have to put the time and repetition in. That's the difference in class rank - it's not always intelligence but minutiae. Everyone is capable of making the intellectual associations and leaps, it's more retention of a vast bank of knowledge. Once you're talking top percentile board scores, intelligence and luck absolutely come into play. However, the association between a 37 MCAT and waltzing through classes with a top rank is unrealistic.

Furthermore, to get that 270 score it doesn't matter if you're the smartest med student in the world, you have to have put in the time to know the details to be able to apply your intelligence to get the question correct. With the MCAT, reasoning and intelligence could take you a lot farther if you knew a few equations or concepts.

 

[Xenoblade]

op, you should totally do it.

I would love to compete against you for plastics if you go to the carib. plus, you can enjoy all the sun you can handle next to the beach.

 

[Optimus-Prime]

Surprisingly there were a couple good ones

https://apps.sgu.edu/ERD/2012/ResidPost.nsf/BYPGY?OpenView&RestrictToCategory=PGY1&Count=-1

be it from 2012...

thoracic at Wisconsin
GS at NY Presbyterian
IM at Hopkins
Psychiatry at Harvard
Anesthesiology at NY Presbyterian
saw 1 ortho and 1 neuro surg. before I got tired of reading; I didn't realize how massive the class was

 

[Fabio Lanzoni]

Surprisingly there were a couple good ones

https://apps.sgu.edu/ERD/2012/ResidPost.nsf/BYPGY?OpenView&RestrictToCategory=PGY1&Count=-1

be it from 2012...

thoracic at Wisconsin
GS at NY Presbyterian
IM at Hopkins
Psychiatry at Harvard
Anesthesiology at NY Presbyterian
saw 1 ortho and 1 neuro surg. before I got tired of reading; I didn't realize how massive the class was

SDN is so over the top most of the time. Yes, it's bad to go carib. No, it's not as bad as SDN makes it seem. Same for most other advice given here.

 

[chenzt]

SDN is so over the top most of the time. Yes, it's bad to go carib. No, it's not as bad as SDN makes it seem. Same for most other advice given here.

7 possibly respectable matches (assuming it wasn't a prelim or a crappy program slapped with a prestigious name) out of hundreds of applicants, some who don't match at all, yet here we are with someone claiming Carib being an alright route to take. Okay.

 

[Caesar]

Surprisingly there were a couple good ones

https://apps.sgu.edu/ERD/2012/ResidPost.nsf/BYPGY?OpenView&RestrictToCategory=PGY1&Count=-1

be it from 2012...

thoracic at Wisconsin
GS at NY Presbyterian
IM at Hopkins
Psychiatry at Harvard
Anesthesiology at NY Presbyterian
saw 1 ortho and 1 neuro surg. before I got tired of reading; I didn't realize how massive the class was

Look at the 2014....
or even at 2013 there is no one in any competitive fields.

 

[Law2Doc]

Surprisingly there were a couple good ones

https://apps.sgu.edu/ERD/2012/ResidPost.nsf/BYPGY?OpenView&RestrictToCategory=PGY1&Count=-1

be it from 2012...

thoracic at Wisconsin
GS at NY Presbyterian
IM at Hopkins
Psychiatry at Harvard
Anesthesiology at NY Presbyterian
saw 1 ortho and 1 neuro surg. before I got tired of reading; I didn't realize how massive the class was

Do we really need to go down this road again? First, If the IM and GS are prelim spots, rather than categorical, they really don't count. Means they are just going to have to do the match again next year. Also some of those supposed name brand places you listed actually have a number of hospital affiliates such that your certificate might say "Harvard" someplace hidden in the corner, but the South Shore Brocton VA program simply is not what people really mean when they say they trained at "Harvard". We aren't talking MGH or Brigham and yes there's a difference. So no, they aren't doing psych at "Harvard", although I'm sure that's how the school is spinning it. There are probably 400 people in a typical offshore graduating class (you mentioned it being massive). More telling would be the people left off the list. The fact that you can point to only a small handful as stellar is pretty telling. In the typical US allo program it's the reverse -- only one or two you can point to that didn't land something solid. Anyway this has been hashed out on other threads ad nauseum. If you want to go offshore then go. Just don't try to sell others how it's the kind of path someone without red flags and with a high step 1 should take -- it's not. It's a hail Mary pass to get back in the game if you've royally screwed up, nothing more. And as the number of graduates from US schools increases each year, odds of even getting a spot you can pretend is at Harvard are getting bleaker.

 

[Optimus-Prime]

Look at the 2014....
or even at 2013 there is no one in any competitive fields.

Do we really need to go down this road again? First, If the IM and GS are prelim spots, rather than categorical, they really don't count. Means they are just going to have to do the match again next year. Also some of those supposed name brand places you listed actually have a number of hospital affiliates such that your certificate might say "Harvard" someplace hidden in the corner, but the South Shore Brocton VA program simply is not what people really mean when they say they trained at "Harvard". We aren't talking MGH or Brigham and yes there's a difference. So no, they aren't doing psych at "Harvard", although I'm sure that's how the school is spinning it. There are probably 400 people in a typical offshore graduating class (you mentioned it being massive). More telling would be the people left off the list. The fact that you can point to only a small handful as stellar is pretty telling. In the typical US allo program it's the reverse -- only one or two you can point to that didn't land something solid. Anyway this has been hashed out on other threads ad nauseum. If you want to go offshore then go. Just don't try to sell others how it's the kind of path someone without red flags and with a high step 1 should take -- it's not. It's a hail Mary pass to get back in the game if you've royally screwed up, nothing more. And as the number of graduates from US schools increases each year, odds of even getting a spot you can pretend is at Harvard are getting bleaker.

Wasn't advocating; just showing the actual match list. Not the path I would like to take, but worse comes to worse it seems like people do match somewhere...

My stepdad went to St. George's, and it has been a nightmare to say the least. As you said @Law2Doc its very difficult to get a categorical spot, but he put his time in (2 post education research years), and is now a general surgery resident (not a prestigious place).

 

[Optimus-Prime]

I guess it comes down to if your stats were low enough, and DO was out of the question would you go Caribbean if it was your only means of becoming a doctor?

I would rather re-take the MCAT/post-bacc/SMP, but for older applicants wishing to go primary care this seems like a viable option

 

[Optimus-Prime]

Wasn't advocating; just showing the actual match list. Not the path I would like to take, but worse comes to worse it seems like people do match somewhere... At least from St. George's, can't say for anywhere else


My stepdad went to St. George's, and it has been a nightmare to say the least. As you said @Law2Doc its very difficult to get a categorical spot, but he put his time in (2 post education research years), and is now a general surgery resident (not a prestigious place).

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

Hit or miss. No really really top notch, "gotta have this resident" types, but certainly hard working, reasonably smart individuals. Prelim spots are essentially cheap labor for teaching hospitals. They are willing to work twice the hours of an NP/PA at half the cost for a chance to show their stuff to get a categorical spot at the institution they are at or good enough LOR to get a position somewhere else. Almost universally, the prelims that I've seen become categoricals are FMGs that are fantastic. I mean they are great students, great people, have good English, etc. They busted their ass for two years and absolutely deserved their spot and more. There is no reason a former Caribbean student couldn't do that, but it is a miserable pathway. It also pits someone who couldn't get into US MD/DO against the best FMGs who are for all practical purposes are the best US MD students who happened to be born outside the US.

The vast majority of the prelims at my program are actually US MDs who didn't match into plastics/ent/ortho/uro.

Just curious, were the Carribbean surgery prelims good? Or was there just not room to take them into the categorical residency?

Usually the decision to "keep" a prelim or not is dictated as much by numbers as anything else. Our number of graduating chiefs is capped by the ACGME; you can apply for an exemption on a year by year basis for an extra chief but it is not guaranteed. So for us to keep someone for a categorical spot means our department has to really feel strongly about someone's potential.

When we keep a prelim it is usually because the PD is doing some future forecasting/soft math to try and balance out residents going into and out of the lab. Or, the year before I got to my program, one of the interns quit partway through intern year - so they kept one of the prelims to take that spot.

 

[mimelim]

Surprisingly there were a couple good ones

https://apps.sgu.edu/ERD/2012/ResidPost.nsf/BYPGY?OpenView&RestrictToCategory=PGY1&Count=-1

be it from 2012...

thoracic at Wisconsin
GS at NY Presbyterian
IM at Hopkins
Psychiatry at Harvard
Anesthesiology at NY Presbyterian
saw 1 ortho and 1 neuro surg. before I got tired of reading; I didn't realize how massive the class was

thoracic at Wisconsin - They list this as William S Middleton Veterans Hospital, which does not have a Thoracic surgery residency and never has. Also, the name associated with that listing on their page is actually a Veterinary surgical resident that used to live in Wisconsin, but is now at U of Minnesota.
GS at NY Presbyterian - Currently a PGY1, original match was a prelim spot, had to repeat his intern year, but did get a categorical spot in the end.
IM at Hopkins - Not actually Hopkins, the match is Sinai Hospital of Baltimore which is affiliated with JHU, but is a low tier IM program
Psychiatry at Harvard - Not at Harvard, this is a VA psych program that has a loose affiliation with HMS.
Anesthesiology at NY Presbyterian - Not exactly all that competitive, but this is a good match if you want anesthesia in NYC.
saw 1 ortho and 1 neuro surg. - Both at small community hospitals at the least competitive end of the spectrum. (lot less competitive than many programs in IM/Peds/GS)


I strongly caution pre-meds about trying to interpret match lists. You need context. Yes, it is possible to match anywhere in any specialty from any medical school. However, the numbers really are that bad. One or two strong matches every couple years out of a couple thousand students is not a good thing.

In the end, the sign of a good match list is one that people get into their top couple choices for residency. You can't get that information directly because #1 it isn't available and #2 likely doesn't exist in one place. It all depends on how low of a standard you want to set. If all you care about is getting an MD after your name and practicing medicine somewhere in some way in the US, the Caribbean is a decent (not bad, but expensive) route. If you care where you are going to practice, what you are going to practice or how good your post medical school training will be, you are in for a world of hurt going to the Caribbean.

 

[mimelim]

The vast majority of the prelims at my program are actually US MDs who didn't match into plastics/ent/ortho/uro.

What are those guys doing next year? We don't have any of those. Re-applying for surgical sub-specialties or something else?

Usually the decision to "keep" a prelim or not is dictated as much by numbers as anything else. Our number of graduating chiefs is capped by the ACGME; you can apply for an exemption on a year by year basis for an extra chief but it is not guaranteed. So for us to keep someone for a categorical spot means our department has to really feel strongly about someone's potential.

When we keep a prelim it is usually because the PD is doing some future forecasting/soft math to try and balance out residents going into and out of the lab. Or, the year before I got to my program, one of the interns quit partway through intern year - so they kept one of the prelims to take that spot.

+1