Are Carribeans Schopls really worth it?

[deleted421268]

I mean one should consider american med schools over them. But are Caribbean school worth it if one is having a hard time getting into school s? Pros and cons? Is it harder to get competitive residencies from carribean schools? I mean the top carribean schools like st. George and etc

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[Pastamahn]

A quick use of the search function of this website will tell you all you need to know about this topic.

 

[Doudline]

Joined: Sep 4, 2011

You'd think, after 4 years, you'd have grasped at least the basics...

 

[JustaDO]

What a unique post that has never been asked before.

 

[JustaDO]

Joined: Sep 4, 2011

You'd think, after 4 years, you'd have grasped at least the basics...

Quoted for truth.

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

It's only worth it if your primary goal is to be $300,000 in debt with no way to pay it off

 

[NotASerialKiller]

Are Carribeans Schopls really worth it?

I think you answered your own question when you called them "Schopls"

 

[Dr. Death]

Troll

 

[Doctor Dream]

I think you answered your own question when you called them "Schopls"

"Carribeans Schopls" to be exact

 

[Ukpremed]

No!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[WedgeDawg]

I go to a school affiliated with a state affiliated with a city affiliated with a hospital affiliated with a rotation site affiliated with an administrative office affiliated with a country affiliated with a hemisphere affiliated with another country affiliated with a caribbean medical school and I can tell you, coming from my vast experience, with 100% certainty that its worth it

 

[studentdocftw]

Can you match a US residency? Yes. Is it likely? Less than a coin flip. So unless you are willing to dish out 200k+ for those odds, I'd say no.

 

[Spector1]

need you ask?

 

[MSclerosis]

Certainly, it can be a viable route for some.

If you:
1) are absolutely determined to become a physician (there is no turning back)
2) have already applied 2+ times in the US (MD/DO)
3) are strong academically but for whatever reason, your GPA/MCAT does not reflect your true ability
4) are OK with arranging every rotation, hard-mode, with little or no help from the school
5) can finance your education

I don't recommend it, but hey, it's an alternative.

 

[xffan624]

Certainly, it can be a viable route for some.

If you:
1) are absolutely determined to become a physician (there is no turning back)
2) have already applied 2+ times in the US (MD/DO)
3) are strong academically but for whatever reason, your GPA/MCAT does not reflect your true ability
4) are OK with arranging every rotation, hard-mode, with little or no help from the school
5) can finance your education

I don't recommend it, but hey, it's an alternative.

You forgot, are not picky about what specialty they go into or where they do their residency.

Also are able to accept the real possibility that they will never practice medicine in the US even after graduating.

 

[tenblackalps]

1) If you are interested in studying "tropical or global medicine"
2) If you are a competitive student interested in a "less expensive, English-based education"
3) If you are interested in practicing medicine in another country

Hilariously misinforming article about Carib med schools
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...ming-article-about-carib-med-schools.1164480/

 

[LuluLovesMe]

Not all off-shore schools are the same and the 50% match rate needs to be examined with:
1) how many students who start the program earn a degree (attrition rate)
2) How many graduates remain active applicants and rank in match (ie pass USMLE and get interviewed/ranked for match)
3) how many students match in residency (not after match placement)
4) how many students match in prelim spots
5) how many students place in after match SOAP or off cycle contracts

For comparison, US MD/DO schools have a 94% graduation rate after 5 years (97% after 8 for dual degree) with a 94% Match rate (and near 100% placement.) So about 88% of students who start graduate and match a slot within 5 years. This number would be closer to over 95% if taking into account all who graduate (thru 8 years) and then either match or place. So if 97% graduate and 99% match/place (some dont get a spot or dont even seek a spot) means 96% of students who start a US MD/DO program with graduate and get a residency slot.

Better Caribbean schools (the big 3/4) have a 50% attrition rate and at best, 85% placement (with 55%-60% match and 30% after match). So they have 40%-45% rate of starting school and getting any residency slot, including less desired specialties, geographic locations, specific programs, and prelim spots. In short, alot of spots that are not particularly wanted, And without a residency slot, you cant practice medicine in the US

So is it worth to be in hundreds of thousands in debt with less than 50% chance of getting any residency slot, and approaching 30% of getting a non-prelim spot.

I agree with your stats, but just as a thought, I feel the 40% who do end up placed somewhere were people who would have succeeded in a US medical school anyways but weren't able to get in due to a poor application strategy or a non academic deficiency in their app. The reason the placement rate is so low is in large part due to decreased admissions standards.

 

[jl lin]

Not if it significantly reduces your chances of getting into a good residency program.

 

[Promethean]

Certainly, it can be a viable route for some.

If you:
1) are absolutely determined to become a physician (there is no turning back)
2) have already applied 2+ times in the US (MD/DO)
3) are strong academically but for whatever reason, your GPA/MCAT does not reflect your true ability
4) are OK with arranging every rotation, hard-mode, with little or no help from the school
5) can finance your education

I don't recommend it, but hey, it's an alternative.

You mean, if you are deluding yourself about your capabilities, have no idea what you are getting yourself into, and have money to BURN.

If you are absolutely determined to become a physician, stop making stupid decisions like applying multiple times if your GPA and MCAT aren't where they need to be. Stop applying to schools, instead apply yourself to correcting those problems. With grade replacement, even if you've really bungled your academics for some reason, you can recover from that and get into a good DO program. If you can't get it together to do well enough on the MCAT to get into a DO school, that should tell you something.

A school that admits people who have no business being in medical school is not doing them a favor. It is just going to take their money and leave them in far worse shape than if they'd just gone a different route.

 

[MSclerosis]

You mean, if you are deluding yourself about your capabilities, have no idea what you are getting yourself into, and have money to BURN.

If you are absolutely determined to become a physician, stop making stupid decisions like applying multiple times if your GPA and MCAT aren't where they need to be. Stop applying to schools, instead apply yourself to correcting those problems. With grade replacement, even if you've really bungled your academics for some reason, you can recover from that and get into a good DO program. If you can't get it together to do well enough on the MCAT to get into a DO school, that should tell you something.

A school that admits people who have no business being in medical school is not doing them a favor. It is just going to take their money and leave them in far worse shape than if they'd just gone a different route.

Don't delude yourself. Here are the numbers:

Better Caribbean schools (the big 3/4) have a 50% attrition rate and at best, 85% placement (with 55%-60% match and 30% after match). So they have 40%-45% rate of starting school and getting any residency slot, including less desired specialties, geographic locations, specific programs, and prelim spots. In short, alot of spots that are not particularly wanted, And without a residency slot, you cant practice medicine in the US

So is it worth to be in hundreds of thousands in debt with less than 50% chance of getting any residency slot, and approaching 30% of getting a non-prelim spot.

While I don't recommend the Caribbean route, plenty of people take it, and match back successfully into the US or Canada.

A school that admits people who have no business being in medical school is not doing them a favor.

Who are you to judge? While some people are unfit to study medicine, others end up making fine doctors, even after they have studied in the Caribbean.

 

[22031 Alum]

All these posts, and nobody has asked OP if he can work it. Or put his thing down flip it and reverse it.

 

[Promethean]

Who are you to judge? While some people are unfit to study medicine, others end up making fine doctors, even after they have studied in the Caribbean.

Who am I to judge? I'm someone who personally knows people who tried going the Caribbean route only to come out with no degree, or a useless degree, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

I'm not clear on the point you were trying to make with someone else's *optomistic* numbers. I've run them before in other threads and come up with the likelihood of getting into a residency if you are student starting out in the Caribbean is more on the order of 25%. You have to consider that well more than 50% of students who start in the Caribbean do not graduate. I think that is a generous number, but let's use it.

So, 100 start, and only 50 graduate, consider that only 50% of those have historically ended up in residencies. (Let's not quibble about the exact percentage, especially since again, I'm actually being generous to start... and that number is likely to fall as the AOA/ACGME merger tightens up available residency spots even while graduating DO numbers climb.) The result is 25 of 100 people who started out in the Caribbean end up in low tier residencies, while 75 are deeply in debt with no hope remaining to achieve their dreams.

It is the equivalent of buying lottery ticket that costs $300,000 and several years of your life which gives you, at best, only a 1:4 chance of becoming a doctor. If you have $300,000 sitting around, and no other hope, then you still shouldn't do it. You could have invested a tiny fraction of that and a year or two into getting your academic situation in order so that you could get into a domestic school at which your chances of graduating and matching are more like 95+%

No matter how you look at it, the Caribbean is a bad deal. I'm not disputing that there aren't any fine doctors to ever walk across that minefield. It's just that they were the outliers who happened to make it across. The broken and mangled lives of their classmates aren't as easy to see, unless you do actually run the numbers. Anyone who comes out of the Caribbean as a fine physician could have done it in a US school with less trouble, expense, and risk. And so could quite a few of those who didn't make it, if they hadn't wasted their chance by going offshore.

EDIT: To be clear... gonnif was using numbers for the BEST offshore schools, but all students who go Caribbean aren't going to those. If you prefer to stick with that, go ahead and say that as many as 40% of people who matriculate in the Caribbean might get a residency seat in the US. That still doesn't begin to compare to a 90-95% chance at a US DO school. You have to compare all who start not just all who graduate, since the Caribbean schools, even the BEST of them, lose at least 50% of all who start at them, by design. American schools don't try to weed out their classes like that.

 

[jakeyk]

An MD degree without a residency is worthless. A residency without an MD degree is impossible.

Q.E.D. if you get a residency, its worth it. If you don't, it's not.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Don't delude yourself. Here are the numbers:

Those aren't good numbers lol

While I don't recommend the Caribbean route, plenty of people take it, and match back successfully into the US or Canada.

Just because some people do it successfully doesn't make it a good idea. Many people don't hurt others when they drive drunk, but that doesn't make it a good decision.

Who are you to judge? While some people are unfit to study medicine, others end up making fine doctors, even after they have studied in the Caribbean.

Oh, sorry, I thought this was an advice forum for people who want to go to medical school. Guess I'm in the wrong place. As for your second sentence, see the point I made above.

 

[MSclerosis]

Who am I to judge? I'm someone who personally knows people who tried going the Caribbean route only to come out with no degree, or a useless degree, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

Meanwhile, I know people who have matched back into Internal Medicine and Family Medicine. I don't recommend the Caribbean route, but people succeed.

 

[Promethean]

Meanwhile, I know people who have matched back into Internal Medicine and Family Medicine. I don't recommend the Caribbean route, but people succeed.

I also know some (not many!) of those folks. They were very lucky.

Some people survive a round of Russian Roulette, even when there are only 1 or 2 empty chambers out of 6.

Their good fortune isn't a reason not to warn everyone who will listen about how dangerous that is, especially if there are ANY alternatives. Including just not playing.

 

[Planes2Doc]

At my rotation site we have a few 3rd and 4th years from the new SGUL Nicosia program in Cyprus. Around seven failed the USMLE Step 1. That says something about these schools.

Did I mention it's already difficult to match even if you passed Step 1 (and did well) the first time?

 

[MSclerosis]

I also know some of those folks. They were lucky.

They were unlucky not to be admitted to the US or Canada. The were good students, but had a bad year or two.

After going to the Caribbean, they worked their butt off, and proved their worth on the USMLE exams. Luck would have helped, yes.

 

[WedgeDawg]

They were unlucky not to be admitted to the US or Canada. The were good students, but had a bad year or two.

After going to the Caribbean, they worked their butt off, and proved their worth on the USMLE exams. Luck would have helped, yes.

No one is arguing that it's impossible to match back from a Carib school. All we're arguing is that it's a terrible gamble.

 

[GrapesofRath]

They were unlucky not to be admitted to the US or Canada. The were good students, but had a bad year or two.

After going to the Caribbean, they worked their butt off, and proved their worth on the USMLE exams. Luck would have helped, yes.

This is exactly what grade replacement is for. As others have said above, almost everybody who succeeds in the Caribbean route would have succeeded in getting into a DO school through grade replacement and studying their way to at least hitting the national average on the MCAT. They just either didn't want to put in the effort to do so or were far too impatient and gullible.

 

[MSclerosis]

No one is arguing that it's impossible to match back from a Carib school. All we're arguing is that it's a terrible gamble.

Again, I don't recommend the Caribbean, and agree that it is a risky business, but it's not all "terrible" when 40 to 50% (see above) end up matching back to the US or Canada. That's not too bad, considering you would have already exhausted your options of gaining admission to US MD/DO schools.

OP deserves to be better informed and should use the search function to explore older threads.

Grade replacement only applies to DO, correct?

 

[jl lin]

I know of people that have gone this route, but it was > 15 years ago!!!! Even then, they got into primary care. And that's fine if that is there thing. But they struggled w/o proper support, and the business of getting a sound residency spot from off-shore has changed tremendously since then. It may have been worth it for them back then--although it was incredibly expensive, all things considered. Today, nope. It's like serious gambling. You might have some luck and skill on your side, but all of probability is seriously against you. To me, it would be better to go for PA, NP, CRNA, PhD. Ed, anything else. It's an incredibly risky venture, where all your hard work doesn't have a decent change of panning out for you anymore. Again, it's all changed a lot. What was fairly doable 15 years or so ago, really isn't in terms of probable, optimal outcomes and given the extreme expense.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Again, I don't recommend the Caribbean, and agree that it is a risky business, but it's not all "terrible" when 40 to 50% (see above) end up matching back to the US or Canada. That's not too bad, considering you would have already exhausted your options of gaining admission to US MD/DO schools.

OP deserves to be better informed and should use the search function to explore older threads.

Okay first, I don't know how you can think that a $300,000 with less than average to average odds (where the stakes are non-dischargeable debt that can literally ruin the rest of your life) is not "terrible". But, I see I'm not going to convince you otherwise, so I'll leave that alone.

Second, I am of the opinion that if you can't get into a single DO school with a well thought out strategy, you probably should not become a physician. My logic behind this is that if you are willing to go Caribbean, you are necessarily willing to put extreme amounts of money on the line and are willing to "work extremely hard" to make it back to the US for residency. If you are willing to do this, that "really hard work" and extreme amounts of money can be put to a use that can guarantee a better statistical outcome for less risk, less effort, and less money. Take some of that money and retake classes so that your GPA is >3.2 or so. Then buy study materials for the MCAT (probably like $300) and get a 505+ (the MCAT is going to be a lot easier to do well on than med school tests, particularly if your aim is a 505 which is like 65th percentile). You have a realistic shot at DO schools now and by applying early and intelligently, should be able to get in.

So here are your choices:

1). Spend 300k+ in non-dischargeable loans for a 50% chance of getting into a US residency in a terrible location and a 50% chance of being 100% forked. In order to be in that 50%, you'll have to literally be working incredibly hard every single day of your life for 4 years because if you falter even once, you're forked.

2) Spend some money on retaking the MCAT (relatively easy test) and getting your GPA to 3.2+ (taking relatively easy classes), then apply to DO schools and have a 90%+ chance of matching into a US residency. You won't have to work as hard because if you fail a test, you're not immediately kicked out of school. This is honestly the easier, cheaper, and more likely to succeed route.

The biggest thing here is that ANYONE WHO COULD HAVE SUCCEEDED IN THE CARIBBEAN ROUTE COULD HAVE DONE NUMBER 2 AS WELL. IF YOU CANNOT DO NUMBER 2 YOU WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY FAIL ATTEMPTING 1.

QED: If you can't get into a DO school, you shouldn't become a doctor.

 

[AlteredScale]

All these posts, and nobody has asked OP if he can work it. Or put his thing down flip it and reverse it.

How does ^this^ not have 20+ likes yet. This is amazing.

 

[Cotterpin]

IF YOU CANNOT DO NUMBER 2 YOU WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY FAIL ATTEMPTING 1.

Bathroom humor.

 

[neekzg]

How does ^this^ not have 20+ likes yet. This is amazing.

hahaha omg i almost missed that until you brought attention to it.