Attn North Americans in Ireland - Galway and RCSI

[med2UCC]

Hi guys. I am a final med at UCC and we are having a little issue with our uni and conferrings (late June, no degrees before then = late start to residencies essentially). I need to know how students graduating from RCSI and Galway handle this issue when goign home-how do you get your degree in time to register with a state or Provincial medical board and then apply for J-1 visas if applicable? We are in a bit of a quandary here what with only getting our degrees on June 20th and having to start on July 1st all registered and everything (and a few people have been told if they start late they won't be starting at all). I need to know if your schools have a mechanism where you can ask to get the degree early, or at least a copy of it so you can get it certified and start the registration process. Apparently this can be done as students at UCD do it. My e.mail address is
[email protected]
Any advice will be gratefully accepted. Cheers,
M

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[Tayto]

Can you PM me if you find anything out? I will do the same if I hear anything... We usually have one student as the go to person and I'm not it, but will find out if there's any news and let you know.

Wow- June 20 is late- is it usually that late?

 

[Arb]

Go to your conferring/administrating office and get your certificates early. UCD gets theirs mid May since exams are early May. Then send in your certificates to NUI to get it translated. FedEx to your residency program. It all depends when your final exams are. This can only be done when all your exams are completed.

 

[leorl]

Hey guys, i've pm'd Med2UCC re: how trinity does it. With his/her permission, I'll post those conversations to this thread. I'll also try to get people who've succeeded in getting ECFMG cert before July 1st to post.

 

[med2UCC]

Go to your conferring/administrating office and get your certificates early. UCD gets theirs mid May since exams are early May. Then send in your certificates to NUI to get it translated. FedEx to your residency program. It all depends when your final exams are. This can only be done when all your exams are completed.

We actually tried this approach and got told that not only was what we were asking for impossible, it was illegal too. If we could get confirmation that UCD does this, it would give us some leverage, since if one NUI school does this then they all could. Thanks,
M

 

[Unch]

The £^&$%!*$@^$@% Irish sometimes seem as if they couldn't administer their way out of a paper bag.

"Tall poppy syndrome" or something. No one wants to be the one to challenge early diplomas being "illegal" (read, requiring a policy change that no one wants to bother making) and other wacky Victorian rules. Just us "ever complaining" NAmericans to advocate for ourselves and for any nod to forward progress.

 

[med2UCC]

The £^&$%!*$@^$@% Irish sometimes seem as if they couldn't administer their way out of a paper bag.

"Tall poppy syndrome" or something. No one wants to be the one to challenge early diplomas being "illegal" (read, requiring a policy change that no one wants to bother making) and other wacky Victorian rules. Just us "ever complaining" NAmericans to advocate for ourselves and for any nod to forward progress.

Just a quick update for you all. We spoke to one of our tutors in paediatrics and she got us in touch with a solicitor who is also on the student affairs committee (not sure what his actual job title at UCC is). He has met with a few of us and is taking our problem up the line to the president's office and also working with the Dean of the school of medicine to try to resolve this issue. Another professor has also lent his weight to the problem, so we are finally starting to see some action. It remains to be seen if the problem will be solved, but there has been some progress. Thanks to everyone who has made suggestions on and off the forum post. Cheers,
M