The education is better, period. The Cambridge grads you talk about face difficulties because of visas (H1-B), which would not apply to the OP. My intention was to give the OP some other options (and IMO, more attractive ones) outside of the Caribbean. SGU isn't cheap; it's more expensive than most American private medical schools, and more than twice as expensive as the Tel Aviv school I mentioned above. SGU also has very, very, very large class sizes (400 per term --> 800 per year). The match list that SGU posts, however, is roughly half the size of the large classes at matriculation. What happened to the rest? Are you telling me the rest all prematched? Give me a break. The quality of core rotations in the US available to SGU students also vary greatly and most students don't have much choice as to where they are placed. These are realities. Going to the school in Israel doesn't stop you from getting elective rotations during your fourth year (in fact everyone does this). And you can actually do research in Israel!
While getting into residency is the important goal, so is getting a rounded education (which includes opportunities for research). And proportional to class size, the Tel Aviv school (which has a class size of 60-70) has far, far better residency placements than SGU and the other Caribbean schools.
SGU and other Caribbean schools are a viable option, but there are other alternatives still. Yes, Israel has security problems, but the Caribbean also has hurricane problems. Both are at the will of God so to speak.
Well the OP wouldn't get into cambridge anyway so giving him that option is irrelevant.
As for SGU their graduating class sizes aren't 400/semester just yet. I just started my 4th year and my term size is 309 and it's going to stay at the 300 level for another year or so at least. also I posted an email we got from our dean (on another thread about official mathc lists) and it said that we match at a rate of 74% which is considerably higher than the 48% match rate for all IMGs/FMGs put together (NBME data). a good number prematch and a good number scramble as well, many also go back to their home countries, SGU is an international school and we have students from Great Britain, African, the Caribbean and Asia, so those go back to their home countries. Sure some don't match, those are the ones that didn't plan ahead, aimed too high with no back up plans or just weren't good enough (failed the steps or something else). Some US students don't match either, isn't that a shocker.
As for clinical sites we have many sites where we rotate with Cornell and Columbia med students in NYC, and UMDNJ students in NJ. And you're wrong because we do get to pick where we want to go. at the end of our second year we pick top 3 choices of the hospitals we want to go to and 95% get one of their top 2 choices. We have those hospital representatives come down to the island once a year and talk to us about their hospitals and what they have to offer, so we get informed. Research is not as big of deal to residencies unless you're going for super competitive spots residencies like Ortho or you want to go to a good university program even still i know plenty of people who matched at university programs from SGU and had no reserach. Also doing just your electives or doing both cores and electives which do you think is better?
Getting a residency is the
only goal, if you want to practice medicine in the US. I would much rather not have a "rounded" education and match at the residency of my choice than to have a rounded education but end up with out a residency, you than can do you know what with that rounded education.
Also it's impossible to say how good the match list of Israel schools because they don't post the specialties, and they don't even post the year by year. they just list the hospitals where they have residents, for all we know there has only been one resident at that hospital and that was like 10 years ago or more. if SGU or ROSS did that you'd see peopel going to Harvard Mass General for Radiation Oncology, Stanford for anesthesia (this year's match at SGU) Dartmouth, and many many other amazing programs, but we don't we list our programs by year, with specialties and full names included, SGU doesn't keep things hidden.
here all it says is residency appointments by state, doesn't give the year that they went, nor the specialty. I bet this is a list for their entire history from day one.
http://medicine.tau.ac.il/english/index.php/ny/alumni
and lastly i'll give you the whole hurricane vs. terrorist bomber thing. i gues that's a 50/50.
