Canadian Student Applying to Podiatry/Do we need to apply for work visas ?

[premedpoddoc]

Hello,

I have some unanswered questions remaining about podiatry after shadowing a couple podiatrists in my area.

1. If I get accepted into a podiatric school in the U.S. do I then have to apply for a work visa (J-1 or H1B) in order to do my residency granted I do well on the board exams, which I hear are quite tough according to wikipedia. If so, how difficult is it to obtain this?

2. What is the pass rate for the board exams in podiatry? Are the board exams comparable to the toughness of the MCAT? (worse or better)

3. I also have a concern that I may make all these contacts if I end up in the U.S. such as through my residency or colleagues in classes and after all that I may have to pack my bags and start from scratch in Canada in terms of starting up a clinic and making myself well known....which I am prepared to do if I have to; however, what if I enjoy where I have settled and would like to make a way for myself practicing in the U.S. especially with its wider podiatric scope of practice...does anyone know Canadians or other international students that have obtained a green card after surgical residency in podiatric medicine and the difficulty of this process?

These are all my pressing questions for now. Honest and accurate information (i.e. concrete examples of collegues) would be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Podman]

Hello,

I have some unanswered questions remaining about podiatry after shadowing a couple podiatrists in my area.

1. If I get accepted into a podiatric school in the U.S. do I then have to apply for a work visa (J-1 or H1B) in order to do my residency granted I do well on the board exams, which I hear are quite tough according to wikipedia. If so, how difficult is it to obtain this?

2. What is the pass rate for the board exams in podiatry? Are the board exams comparable to the toughness of the MCAT? (worse or better)

3. I also have a concern that I may make all these contacts if I end up in the U.S. such as through my residency or colleagues in classes and after all that I may have to pack my bags and start from scratch in Canada in terms of starting up a clinic and making myself well known....which I am prepared to do if I have to; however, what if I enjoy where I have settled and would like to make a way for myself practicing in the U.S. especially with its wider podiatric scope of practice...does anyone know Canadians or other international students that have obtained a green card after surgical residency in podiatric medicine and the difficulty of this process?

These are all my pressing questions for now. Honest and accurate information (i.e. concrete examples of collegues) would be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

hi there,

We have quite a few canucks at our school as I'm sure they are common at all of the colleges of podiatric medicine. I'll answer your questions based on what I've been told from my canadian friends.

1) During your residency, the hospital will work out the paper work and grant you a worker's visa - and that is usually never a problem considering you are still part of your training. I actually know a canadian podiatrist working with my uncle in michigan and he obtained a permanent alien status through residency - which allows him to work in the united states while upkeeping his canadian citizenship w/o a US citizen status. As for how difficult it is to get this status? I can't really comment but typically i believe that if you're working at a hospital as a resident and you have a good record - i.e. no felonies, etc. then you're more likely to obtain status - especially that you'd be getting recommendation letters from the hospital and the doctors of course.

2) The pass rate on part I (based on the first 2 years of podiatric medical schoo) was 81% on the national scale. As for the difficulty in comparison to the MCATs - well, put it this way - the MCAT is based on knowledge from undergraduate school while the board exams are based on the first 2 years of podiatric medical education - so I believe the boards are more difficult than the MCATs (in my opinion at least).

3) I already answered in the first point, but nonetheless - I think your best bet is by contacting residency directors via email or phone and ask them directly if they had helped other canadian DPM's to obtain permanent or green card status and if they would be willing to do so for situations like yourself.

Here is the site for the american association of colleges of podiatric medicine www.aacpm.org and if you check under the CASPR/CRIP you can find all the participating residency programs with director contact information. I'm sure they'd give you more concrete and upto date information that would be more applicable to your situation.

Best of luck, and which province are you from by the way? I know that if you're in Alberta then your job opportunities should be comparable to what we have in the United States.

Regards,

podman

 

[premedpoddoc]

Thank you so much Podman. Your advice was helpful, and i'll let you know how my search went with contacting the residency directors about my potential circumstance. By the way I'm from British Columbia.
Thanks once again.

Cheers,
premedmoddoc

 

[premedpoddoc]

What is the pass rate for the surgical board exams?

Thanks,
premedpoddoc

 

[dpmgrad]

Hello,

I have some unanswered questions remaining about podiatry after shadowing a couple podiatrists in my area.

1. If I get accepted into a podiatric school in the U.S. do I then have to apply for a work visa (J-1 or H1B) in order to do my residency granted I do well on the board exams, which I hear are quite tough according to wikipedia. If so, how difficult is it to obtain this?

2. What is the pass rate for the board exams in podiatry? Are the board exams comparable to the toughness of the MCAT? (worse or better)

3. I also have a concern that I may make all these contacts if I end up in the U.S. such as through my residency or colleagues in classes and after all that I may have to pack my bags and start from scratch in Canada in terms of starting up a clinic and making myself well known....which I am prepared to do if I have to; however, what if I enjoy where I have settled and would like to make a way for myself practicing in the U.S. especially with its wider podiatric scope of practice...does anyone know Canadians or other international students that have obtained a green card after surgical residency in podiatric medicine and the difficulty of this process?

These are all my pressing questions for now. Honest and accurate information (i.e. concrete examples of collegues) would be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

Podman has already answered most of your questions. I just wanted to add a few more things to his reply. If you do get accepted to one of the Podiatric Surgical residency programs in the US, the hospital will be able to assist you with the paperwork to get your work visa. However, I would recommend you to contact those residency programs directly about this since not all hospitals are willing to do this. In general, the major university hospitals will not have any problems helping you to get your work visa. However, the smaller community hospitals may not be willing to do. As you may or may not know. you will not be able to apply to any of the residency programs in the VA hospital system since they require that you have to be an US citizen. You had also mentioned that you are from British Columbia, there is a CPME approved Podiatric Surgical residency program in BC. I heard that BC is one of the more progressive provinces that allow DPMs to operate in the hospital setting.

As for getting a green card, I know that my roommate (who is originally from Montreal) from Podiatry school had a difficult time getting one. He even went through the Green Card Lottery program and was not successful. He was able to participate in the Green Card Lottery Program because he held dual citizenship (Canada and Egypt). He ended up going back to Montreal to work and is actually doing very well there.