Carrib and Canadians

[enmeds]

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Hey everyone,
I am just curious about Canadians and gaining residency in the USA after attending a carrib med school like SGU. We all know that you need to get high board scores after attending an offshore med school but my question is about Canadians. Now when program directors select students for residency, carrib students already are at a disadvantages against US MD/DO students. However, what about against US students from carrib schools. Wouldn't program directors prefer to accept carrib students who are American citizens if they have similar or even slightly lower board scores than their Canadian counterparts who may have visa issues?
Is this at all even true?

Thanks

 

[ChairmanMao]

Hey everyone,
I am just curious about Canadians and gaining residency in the USA after attending a carrib med school like SGU. We all know that you need to get high board scores after attending an offshore med school but my question is about Canadians. Now when program directors select students for residency, carrib students already are at a disadvantages against US MD/DO students. However, what about against US students from carrib schools. Wouldn't program directors prefer to accept carrib students who are American citizens if they have similar or even slightly lower board scores than their Canadian counterparts who may have visa issues?
Is this at all even true?

Thanks

I'm hardly the authority on residency programs but from having talked to several FMG residents as well as from my family's experience, there is some truth to the fact that most programs will consider a US citizen or permanent resident over a Canadian counterpart if all things are equal. It's useful to think of residency programs as being employers - they would rather have someone who didn't have immigration issues to deal with (a US citizen) than someone who might get deported or who has to apply for a work visa in order to complete residency in the US.

Again, getting any kind of job in the US is a lot of paperwork if you're not a US citizen or PR. Any employer (or residency program director) would want to avoid having to deal with all the headache associated with it if possible. There are a lot of bureaucratic hurdles to practicing medicine in the US, especially if you're from another country and graduated from a foreign medical school (this includes Carribbean medical schools). Also, let's not forget that most residency programs are funded from medicaid - so priority would be given to competent US citizen or permanent resident. So from a practical standpoint, residency programs would be more likely to pick a US citizen or permanent resident Carribbean graduate if all things are equal.