Any success stories of completing Intern year, and then matching in the US?

[Mirron]

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How difficult is it to complete Intern year, and during that year, apply for Residency in the U.S.? Are there a handful of interns who do this, and how successful are they?

If I start my intern year in Ireland, I'd definitely have my Step 1, 2, and cs completed before the start date in July.

I'm just wondering how it would be possible to take time off for interviews, and the application process. thanks.

 

[charmedj7]

Is intern year the same as in the states, like a pre-lim year, or are you full-on accepted into a 3+ year residency in Ireland?

Anyhow, I work with an IM guy here in DC who graduated from Dublin. I think he had a tough time of it, but he's here now and he's fantastic, so it's definitely possible.

 

[leorl]

This is what I did. I had all my USMLE's done before intern year and could have matched, but I wanted to stay for the intern year for a variety of reasons (pay was good at the time, registration with the irish medical council) and it was a very good year. In my year (2007), 3 of us did this. There were a couple other Americans who also stayed, but they stayed in Ireland more longer term and came back to the US later.

You have 6 weeks off for vacation. 3 weeks in the first 6 months and 3 weeks in the 2nd 6 months. I did interviews in December by scheduling 2 of my vacation weeks then. I spent a 2nd two weeks packing / moving because I didn't get the 2 weeks off in June that I needed to move back. So instead, I used the 10 sick days I was allotted. This is not really fair to the clinical team I was on at the time, but they were very understanding of my situation and the HSE did not need to be notified of this.

Intern year is NOTHING like an intern year in the US or Canada. Intern year means you do 6 months surgery (3 month blocks in different surgical specialties) and 6 months medicine. So I did Ortho, Gen Surg, Medicine for the Elderly, and General Medicine/Rheumatology. You're on call q7 - q9 and although it's a pain in the ass, you learn a ton on call.

When you go back, you have a very steep learning curve because the systems are obviously different, you have to re-learn drug names, you have to learn how labs a resulted (different acronyms are used) and there may be some procedural things that you're not used to, but the Irish work ethic and the way you learn in Ireland is very conducive to producing stellar US residents.

 

[leorl]

Forgot to mention, I matched into EM. One of my other US colleagues who stayed intern year with me also matched EM. The third one matched IM. A fourth one who stayed longer in Ireland than the rest of us matched IM.

 

[Lbgem]

Forgot to mention, I matched into EM. One of my other US colleagues who stayed intern year with me also matched EM. The third one matched IM. A fourth one who stayed longer in Ireland than the rest of us matched IM.

Grats on making it all the way to the top. I've had the privilege of seeing your status change from resident/chief resident to attending now. Gives hope to the rest of us.

Personally I'm interesting in IM or EM (not sure yet) but I know it's going to be tough to match back. Appreciate your posts.