anyone here studied in the carribean and currently practing in US??

[alex101]

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what is the dynamics in the hospital for IMGs.. like as far as hospital politics, your interactions with patients who know you're from a foreign especially carribean medical schools. are they cautious or even condescending?
what about american trained doctors too, are thy respectful towards you? or is a lot of "talking behind your back...laughing or saying you took "the easy way" in(whatever that means)...."..etc.

im really curious. are the payrates the same for when everything is said and done..does a doctor practicing the same specialty from the carribean get the same salary as someone who studied in the U.S?

 

[dragonfly99]

I've never "talked behind the back" of the one Carib trained attending @my med center, or seen anyone else do so. I think the main issue is being able to get a good education down there, and then get a residency. The Carib grads tend to get segregated into certain residencies, along with other IMG's, and some of these would be residencies with not very good working conditions (i.e. run down hospitals, less support from nursing staff, probably less teaching, etc.). This is not a minor issue. Also, not everybody who goes down there ever graduated and passes the USMLE. Also, they would be somewhat limited in the residencies they can get, in most cases (i.e. can get Internal med or FP, maybe general surgery, but forget dermatology and plastics or orthopedics for the vast majority of students). A significant portion of students don't make it, and would end up with bigtime student loan debt, and no great way to pay it off. Going to any med school is a big, big decision and involves some personal and financial risk, and going down to the Caribbean involves more. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm saying it wouldn't be my first choice...

If you want to be an academic doctor/professor, then going to the Caribbean wouldn't be very helpful, but for private practice, ultimately wouldn't be a huge deal IF you could get the residency you wanted. Few patients will be savvy about asking where you went to med school, or would even know about Caribbean med schools. Some w/higher educational levels might be curious and ask you.

Once you are in practice, the pay would be a nonissue. You would get paid the same in general,though might have a little trouble getting in to the more "prestigious" big city specialist groups. In a practical sense it would matter little in the end I think, provided you could get a good residency and do well in it.

 

[docmojo]

I went to Ross University on Dominica. I am a practicing anesthesiologist. If you do well on USMLE's almost any residency can be yours. If you also want to do a few years of research you can get any spot you desire.
In rotations as a med student you get the respect you earn. There are few med school clinical rotations where you interact with US med students. Where you do you'll find they are your equals not your superiors.
Your success is in your hands.

 

[QbanDoc]

Anyone here who studied in Cuba?

 

[BORNagainSTDENT]

I went to Ross University on Dominica. I am a practicing anesthesiologist. If you do well on USMLE's almost any residency can be yours. If you also want to do a few years of research you can get any spot you desire.
In rotations as a med student you get the respect you earn. There are few med school clinical rotations where you interact with US med students. Where you do you'll find they are your equals not your superiors.
Your success is in your hands.

does this even hold true for schools such as AUA ect.

can some one explain why derm and ortho ect are so much more competetive or desirable than other residencies?

 

[RussianJoo]

they're so competitive because there aren't many spots. Derm is competitive because it's a life style specialty. you work 9 to5 or even less 5 days a week and there is almost never an emergancy and you make a ton of cash. ortho is just a very cool profession and also there aren't that many spots. every place that has a few spots makes it competitive.

and i personally don't think that statement that you quoted holds true for AUA, MUA, or anyother younger carib school. Basically only people from SGU, ROSS, AUC, and SABA can make a claim like that. There's a lot of bias in the medical world and it's very hard for a carib school to be taken seriously by program directors especially if it's really young.

 

[BORNagainSTDENT]

rusian joo are you the same poster who is on the valuemd board with the russian flag? just curious because if so you have also given me some adice on that forum.

 

[RussianJoo]

yes that's me.

 

[BORNagainSTDENT]

they're so competitive because there aren't many spots. Derm is competitive because it's a life style specialty. you work 9 to5 or even less 5 days a week and there is almost never an emergancy and you make a ton of cash. ortho is just a very cool profession and also there aren't that many spots. every place that has a few spots makes it competitive.

and i personally don't think that statement that you quoted holds true for AUA, MUA, or anyother younger carib school. Basically only people from SGU, ROSS, AUC, and SABA can make a claim like that. There's a lot of bias in the medical world and it's very hard for a carib school to be taken seriously by program directors especially if it's really young.

where can I find out about how much the different specialties make?

 

[RussianJoo]

ask a doctor. there are no lists. I know a family practice docs who makes $600K a year and ones that make $150K a year. it all depends on how good of a businessman you are. besides picking a specialty based on how much they make is the worst way to go about it. if you wanted to make money and be rich you should have gone to business school and became a business man not a doctor. And now that Hussain Obama is president MD's will make even less money and be taxed even more.

 

[dragonfly99]

There ARE published lists of salaries, etc. IMHO they tend to be inflated.
Medical Economics magazine publishes one such list.
I can ballpark it for you:
peds 80k-200k (big range)
fp probably 80-200's, more like 100-150 usually
IM probably 100-200k
pathology 120-200's?
ortho and radiology and anesthesia 300's+
cardiology interventional 200-300's+
cards noninterventional 150-250?
my salary 33year old academic researcher board certified in internal med, 45k + whatever I can make moonlighting (after 8+ years of training, counting med school, residency, fellowship). Would be more like 100k if I was official faculty (not a research fellow) but that would require either a fellowship or much more hospitalist-type work (i.e. seeing hospitalized generaly internal medicine patients all day and not doing research).

 

[BORNagainSTDENT]

ask a doctor. there are no lists. I know a family practice docs who makes $600K a year and ones that make $150K a year. it all depends on how good of a businessman you are. besides picking a specialty based on how much they make is the worst way to go about it. if you wanted to make money and be rich you should have gone to business school and became a business man not a doctor. And now that Hussain Obama is president MD's will make even less money and be taxed even more.

I do have a bachelors in business and I dislike it. I am not researching going into medicine soley for the money but that does not mean I should not know how much money each different choice pays in comparison to one another, the same way I would research each school and not just accept that each one gives me an MD or DO. I hope it does not come off like I am being a smart ass, just trying to justify my question. thank you for the help thou.

 

[RussianJoo]

dragonfly gave you a good ballpark range here's another website that i stumbled upon.

http://www.cbsalary.com/ but it all varies if you go into private practice or if you go into acedemics. and depends on how hard you work, and on how successful your practice is. heck i bet there are doctors out there who filled for bankruptcy because they opened up an office and no one came to them so after investing hunderds of thousands of dollars if not millions they had to close up shop and leave. on average hospitals will pay you much less then a private practice would, and owning your own office should make you even more money but not always.

 

[BORNagainSTDENT]

thanks for the info. where can I read about the different seperations ect, for example I know a lot falls under IM and do not know what Fb is and would like to read up on it on my own but would not know where.

 

[dragonfly99]

I would look in the American College of PHysicians web site (ACP).

Also, the AMA is a good organization that you can join when you become a med student. They also have career exploration stuff on their web site.
ama-assn.org is the main web site. You can surf from there.