ANY Canadian medical graduates accepted to a US residency?

[madamdew]

Ok...Sorry if some of these questions are repetitive, I haven't been able to find a solid answer for any of them. Really appreciate some feedback.
1. I have a green card but am in 3rd year of a canadian med school: is USMLE Step 1 enough? or need to do USMLE step 2 as well before applying in November?
2. If I want to do a residency program in US, do I need to do an elective there or Canadian electives will do.
3. Is the level of competitiveness for different specialties comparable to the canadian programs? For example, Plastics, Radiology, and Derm?? are they as hard to get into as they are in Canada?
4. When is the deadline for applications in 4th year? Nov 01?
5. Any site that compares the different US residency programs in the same specialty? and gives the general information on number of positions offered in different specialties?

Thank you for your feedback. 🙂

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[madamdew]

Ok...Sorry if some of these questions are repetitive, I haven't been able to find a solid answer for any of them. Really appreciate some feedback.
1. I have a green card but am in 3rd year of a canadian med school: is USMLE Step 1 enough? or need to do USMLE step 2 as well before applying in November?
2. If I want to do a residency program in US, do I need to do an elective there or Canadian electives will do.
3. Is the level of competitiveness for different specialties comparable to the canadian programs? For example, Plastics, Radiology, and Derm?? are they as hard to get into as they are in Canada?
4. When is the deadline for applications in 4th year? Nov 01? or different programs have different deadlines?
5. Any site that compares the different US residency programs in the same specialty? and gives the general information on number of positions offered in different specialties?

Thank you for your feedback. 🙂

 

[Blade28]

Check out the FAQs/stickies here - there's a wealth of info there!

In addition, the ERAS/Match forum may help, as well as the official website www.nrmp.org which explains the Match process with its deadlines, etc.

FREIDA (found via Google search) will help tell you which programs are available in each specialty, and you can find reviews either here on SDN, or on scutwork.com.

Best of luck!

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Ok...Sorry if some of these questions are repetitive, I haven't been able to find a solid answer for any of them. Really appreciate some feedback.
1. I have a green card but am in 3rd year of a canadian med school: is USMLE Step 1 enough? or need to do USMLE step 2 as well before applying in November?
2. If I want to do a residency program in US, do I need to do an elective there or Canadian electives will do.
3. Is the level of competitiveness for different specialties comparable to the canadian programs? For example, Plastics, Radiology, and Derm?? are they as hard to get into as they are in Canada?
4. When is the deadline for applications in 4th year? Nov 01? or different programs have different deadlines?
5. Any site that compares the different US residency programs in the same specialty? and gives the general information on number of positions offered in different specialties?

Thank you for your feedback. 🙂

1. Yes and no. All of the medical schools in Canada are LCME accredited, so you are NOT considered an international medical grad and hence do not need ECFMG certification. Therefore, you are free to alppy with only Step 1 completed.

However, you might find your chances better having completed it, esp if you do well.

2. Same answer as #1. There is no requirement to do a US rotation, but I'd suggest it.

3. Yes, they are just as hard to get into.

4. Applications to most programs are via ERAS, which allows you to upload your application and apply to many programs. ERAS opens for programs on Sept 1st, applicants can begin uploading information on Jul 1. Dean's Letters / MSPE's are released on Nov 1st. Many programs have a Dec 1 or 15 application cutoff, but some are much earlier.

Ophthalmology and Neurosurgery are in the SF Match, and use a different application process and timeline.

5. FREIDA lists all the programs and the number of spots. So does the NRMP match data page. There is no good "comparison" of programs as to which one is "best", mainly because "best" is somewhat in the eye of the beholder.

 

[madamdew]

Thanks for the info 🙂

 

[madamdew]

Thanks for your reply. It was very helpful 🙂

 

[Acherona]

Ok...Sorry if some of these questions are repetitive, I haven't been able to find a solid answer for any of them. Really appreciate some feedback.
1. I have a green card but am in 3rd year of a canadian med school: is USMLE Step 1 enough? or need to do USMLE step 2 as well before applying in November?
2. If I want to do a residency program in US, do I need to do an elective there or Canadian electives will do.
3. Is the level of competitiveness for different specialties comparable to the canadian programs? For example, Plastics, Radiology, and Derm?? are they as hard to get into as they are in Canada?
4. When is the deadline for applications in 4th year? Nov 01?
5. Any site that compares the different US residency programs in the same specialty? and gives the general information on number of positions offered in different specialties?

Thank you for your feedback. 🙂

All canadian schools are accredited by the aamc and are therefore subject to the same rules/requirements as american schools. Your citizenship status is only relevant in that you may need a visa but you have a greencard so there shouldn't be a problem. You don't need step 2 unless the program specifies, and you don't need american electives though it might help to make connections. There is some difference in competitiveness e.g. neuro and peds are pretty competitive in canada but not in the U.S. Rads, Derm, Plastics are all very competitive.

 

[MadameLULU]

Moving and merging with thread in another forum.

 

[jshcan]

Ok...Sorry if some of these questions are repetitive, I haven't been able to find a solid answer for any of them. Really appreciate some feedback.
1. I have a green card but am in 3rd year of a canadian med school: is USMLE Step 1 enough? or need to do USMLE step 2 as well before applying in November?
2. If I want to do a residency program in US, do I need to do an elective there or Canadian electives will do.
3. Is the level of competitiveness for different specialties comparable to the canadian programs? For example, Plastics, Radiology, and Derm?? are they as hard to get into as they are in Canada?
4. When is the deadline for applications in 4th year? Nov 01? or different programs have different deadlines?
5. Any site that compares the different US residency programs in the same specialty? and gives the general information on number of positions offered in different specialties?

Thank you for your feedback. 🙂

Just to add my two cents (I am a Canadian citizen who went to a US med school and recently matched in the States in one of the early match specialties):
1. you definitely only need the step 1 score to apply as people have discussed above. but if you're step 1 even is only average or not good, and this obviously is relative to what specialty you're going for, then you should strongly consider writing the step 2ck before nov/oct and hopefully doing well to improve your scores as a whole.
as a us perm resident and a canadian med school grad, you wont need a visa or have any licensing issues, but you will have to deal with perceptions and misconceptions. likely many program directors will not realize or understand that your canadian med school is lcme accredited and recognized as equivalent. even further, many places will look down upon your school for no other reason other than ignorance. (i met an away student from mcgill and my pd asked me about mcgill and really didn't seem know anything about it as a strong canadian school)
2. you don't need to do an elective in the us, but i do think that for several reasons as others have alluded to it is important. connections, getting a letter from someone well known in the us, proving that you're serious about going south etc...
3. competitiveness is a tough thing to gauge as it changes from year to year. i've heard gen surg is on the way back to being more competitive in the states now, as are ob/gyn and anesthesia. traditionally competitive ones imho are in order: plastics, derm, rad onc, neurosurg, ent, uro, ophtho, ortho, rads.
4. the deadline is nov 1, but particularly for the competitive specialties it is very useful to submit as early as possible (ie sept 1). for the SF match (neurosurg, ophtho) and AUA (uro) match it is even more imperative to submit early in sept as many places offer interviews on a rolling basis.
5. see below for the freida, nrmp sites. in particular the nrmp puts out a breakdown of every specialty in the nrmp that details # of applicants, # of spots, match rate, avg step 1 score of applicants and matched applicants etc. it's called 'charting outcomes of the match' or something very similar and can be found on the above websites. definitely check it out, although it wont give info on the early match specialties which will have to be found on the other sites.

good luck!

 

[Thewonderer]

Agree with step 1 being the only test you need before you apply. You should still want to finish step 2 before you graduate from med school. The reason is that you still need to take step 3 and get your state medical license during residency.

you should consider doing Sub-internship rotation somewhere in the U.S. Since you are considering the U.S., I assume that you either have a city or an institution that you want to live/work at. If that's the case, do a sub-I and work super hard for 4 weeks. If you have very very strong numbers and are not sure how you are going to perform during that rotation, then don't do it because a bad sub-I rotation can ruin your application.

I am not sure that doing electives matters to anyone.

 

[sabji]

just wanted to ask a question as well.

I am going to graduate from a med school in Canada in 2 years time but i'm neither Canadian nor American and i dont have any PR status. will i be considered a IMG and need to go through ECFMG or do i just go through NBME?
A bit confused on this.