Did I make a mistake?

[Kahreek]

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[IlDestriero]

Compared to ~95% first time match for us school applicants?. Sounds absolutely dire to me.

 

[Mad Jack]

those are not bad odds at all tbh

Given that the majority of them are trying to match IM, psych, peds, neurology, and FM, and that the majority of those that don't match never match, I must wonder if you're taking crazy pills.

 

[Wordead]

Compared to ~95% first time match for us school applicants?. Sounds absolutely dire to me.

If you add the odds of him actually doing well in college and on the MCAT to that 95%...maybe its a lot closer. What % increase in match chance would be worth a few hundred thousand dollars?

 

[the argus]

No no no.
Don't show the data, someone posted earlier that the Caribbean has an 80-90% match rate. Don't burst their bubble man, it's Easter.

That was me, and yes, the first time match rate from Ross/SGU/AUC is 80-90% (I didn't say all Caribbean schools, just those 3). As I mentioned, this does not take into account students lost along the way. But those 3 caribbean schools have 80-90% match rates. I also explained why this differs so much from the 53% in the NRMP data reports.

You can believe it or not, I don't really care, but those are the facts.

 

[Bearded_Monkey]

Everyone is very caught up in the numbers, and I'll leave that to people with a higher pay grade...

Here are some other important questions:

Are you having a good time in school in Pakistan? Do you have a girlfriend, or a social life?
Do you have any passions outside of medicine? Was there anything outside of medicine that you may have been curious about?

Undergrad is a great opportunity to figure all these things out. I had a lot of fun, dated a bunch of different kinds of girls, and met a very diverse group of people. I took a glass blowing class that was awesome, went on road trips, and taught myself how to cook... I also worked to help pay for school. I grew as a person. Every experience you have which might seem unrelated to your goal, could possibly end up being a tool which ultimately makes you a better physician.

Don't get so caught up in this race that you forget to enjoy the ride.

 

[pulmoblast]

Most IMGs face difficulty with visa requirements. You should be able to get into a reasonably competitive IM program if you get good scores as a U.S. Citizen IMG. I don't think you need to quit and join a US med school unless you want to do something really hard to get like plastics. Make sure you study really hard and don't take short cuts ...

 

[freemontie]

Urm...so on one hand you've got the normal US route ( undergrads and then med school) and on the other you've got this 5 year course. Both allows you a chance for residency?
But the usual 5 year undergraduate medicine courses are MBBS degrees, right? Would they be treated like an MD program? I don't think so. I guess they would be given very low preference.

So what's the difference between an MBBS degree and an MD one, apart from MD requiring an undergraduate degree? Does the MD degree give you more speciality in a particular field? [sorry for the tangent but this thread gave me some questions]

MBBS (or MB ChB in latin, or some variants of this) stands for bachelor of medicine/bachelor of surgery and is the name of professional medical degrees in countries following the British system. Formally, they are treated as equal to MDs and many foreign doctors with bachelors medical degrees just call themselves MDs and put "MD" after their name. I guess it's not technically correct, but I've never heard of anyone having a problem with it. So in short- PDs are familiar with this degree. If there is a problem with bias against these applicants it would more likely to come from the school that is awarding it- e.g. if it is a completely unknown place in a third world country. There have been cases where people have conned their way into a US residency and medical license with fake medical degrees from diploma mills. I actually know one OBGYN that slipped in with a degree from "Universidad Centro de Estudios Tecnologicos" in the dominican republic. A couple of their graduates got into US residencies before people got wise to it.

 

[IlDestriero]

That was me, and yes, the first time match rate from Ross/SGU/AUC is 80-90% (I didn't say all Caribbean schools, just those 3). As I mentioned, this does not take into account students lost along the way. But those 3 caribbean schools have 80-90% match rates. I also explained why this differs so much from the 53% in the NRMP data reports.

You can believe it or not, I don't really care, but those are the facts.

No, you're not correct.
The facts are in the NRMP IMG document linked above.
You can choose to believe the published nrmp data or not.
Grenada has one school, SGU, the crown jewel of the Caribbean.
The data is right there in black and white on page 22.
They even broke it down by citizenship.
US IMGs- 534 matched 258 didn't. That's 67%.
Non us IMGs- 155 matched 103 didn't. That's 60%.
I don't know which other countries broken down in the document have only one school, perhaps you can determine the real match rate for other Caribbean schools.
So a significant amount of people fail out, get held back, or whatever, and those that survive the cull and graduate and finally apply to match from SGU have a 33% chance of not matching.
That's criminal.
If you know how many they take in a year you can figure out the wash out rate as well.
The Caribbean schools can hide their own statistics behind smoke and mirrors, but they don't control what the NRMP publishes.

 

[the argus]

No, you're not correct.
The facts are in the NRMP IMG document linked above.
You can choose to believe the published nrmp data or not.
Grenada has one school, SGU, the crown jewel of the Caribbean.
The data is right there in black and white on page 22.
They even broke it down by citizenship.
US IMGs- 534 matched 258 didn't. That's 67%.
Non us IMGs- 155 matched 103 didn't. That's 60%.
I don't know which other countries broken down in the document have only one school, perhaps you can determine the real match rate for other Caribbean schools.
So a significant amount of people fail out, get held back, or whatever, and those that survive the cull and graduate and finally apply to match from SGU have a 33% chance of not matching.
That's criminal.
If you know how many they take in a year you can figure out the wash out rate as well.
The Caribbean schools can hide their own statistics behind smoke and mirrors, but they don't control what the NRMP publishes.

I'll try again. Published data is only useful if you take the time to understand what it is actually measuring, which you clearly have not and refuse to do.

80-90% is the first-time match rate. The rates in the published reports are total applicants, not first-time applicants. They include all the people from previous years that didn't match, which significantly brings down the published rate. By not including all the people from previous years that did match, they are way oversampling the unmatched cohort. Those published rates do not represent the chance of matching as a first time applicant to the NRMP.

The average time since graduation for unmatched US-IMGs is 5.7 years.

When people talk about match rate, they mean first time match rate. You even did this above.

Compared to ~95% first time match for us school applicants?. Sounds absolutely dire to me.

The NRMP reports break down US MD into US seniors vs US grad. They do not do this for IMGs, they lump them all together.

Again, please take the time to understand what the data you are citing actually represents. Saying that US-IMGs from SGU have a 67% of matching is just factually wrong and a complete misuse of the data.

You can keep arguing this if you want, but you are wrong.

 

[IlDestriero]

If it was 90% there wouldn't be many people bringing down the average would there?.
Their website says they have 4900 medical students take out the hundred doing dual degree programs and crunch the numbers for yourself.
I'm sure all the other students wanted to practice abroad and had great success.

 

[the argus]

If it was 90% there wouldn't be many people bringing down the average would there?..

Yes there would.

They have ~800 new people a year apply to the NRMP. So if 10% of them don't match, that's 80 people. 80 x 6 years (remember, the average time since graduation for the unmatched cohort is 5.7 years) = 480 people. Plenty of people to bring down the overall percentage on a yearly basis.

That is where the 67% comes from.

 

[RingOfFire]

that's extremely rare.

Then again, many people don't stick with their original plan (whether it is medicine or not). I didn't. I knew several people that wanted to go to law school, when they started out in college, but chose not to. One person decided against neuropsychology, when she realized how competitive and how much work it took to become one. Medicine isn't the hardest conceptually and certainly not the only competitive program.

 

[JimmyB123]

Yeah, but the DO subspecialty programs (at least for ENT/plastics) are largely rural programs with inferior case loads and variety. They are largely....less than great for training.



That's a good point, though we have no idea how OP is doing in medical school. I agree that he's more than likely a middling student rather than one of the top grads that I was referring to. I'm just not so certain that quitting med school and taking on 8 years of educational debt for a miniscule bump in chances of matching is really worth it, especially since who knows if he would even make it through the coursework and application process.

To play devil's advocate, look at PCOM and CCOM's surgical sub speciality programs. Hardly in rural areas and hardly in areas that would even allow for low case volume/path.

 

[startswithb]

To play devil's advocate, look at PCOM and CCOM's surgical sub speciality programs. Hardly in rural areas and hardly in areas that would even allow for low case volume/path.

In big cities the DO programs are still going to be at the bottom for most things and yes, lack volume or technology. It is almost impossible to realize this as a medical student unless you are a 3rd/4th year applying for the match, rotating/interviewing at programs, or know others in the field. I'm just trying to get others to realize there are and will always be tiers of training.

 

[Wordead]

To play devil's advocate, look at PCOM and CCOM's surgical sub speciality programs. Hardly in rural areas and hardly in areas that would even allow for low case volume/path.

*Shrug* If you dont want to believe me or think you know better as a premed, that's fine.

 

[Shjanzey]

When it comes time for residency apps, you will be considered 2nd-to-the-bottom on the totem pole behind US MD's, US DO's, and Caribbean MD's. The only people you will be considered above are non-US citizen FMG's (eg Pakistani citizens studying at your school).

Caribbean MD's will be considered above you because at least their curriculum mirrors that of the US and they do clinical rotations in the US whereas your curriculum is teaching you how to be a doctor in Pakistan and I assume you have clinical rotations in Pakistan. So residency programs would feel more comfortable having a Carib grad than you.

With more US schools opening/expanding and residency spots not keeping up at a 1:1 pace, it will make it harder for those at the bottom of the totem pole to match. And those that do match will be relegated to "less desirable" specialties like FM, peds, psych, community IM programs, etc. This is already happening now.

So in that regard it makes sense to come back. But just because you come back to the US to do premed isn't a guarantee either. Are you a strong student? What were your grades/SAT scores in high school? Do you feel confident you can pull off a decent GPA (~3.7) and score around the 80th percentile on the MCAT? About 60% of people who apply to MD schools don't even get into one in any given cycle. Are you open to going to DO schools if your scores aren't up to mark?

Your best bet, assuming you are 100% confident you want to be a physician, is to try and get into a BS/MD program with lax requirements but I'm not sure if they accept students with your situation.

I disagree, I would put him lower than foreign FMGs as long as those FMGs have a green card here. It is obvious he tried to game the system by skipping the whole undergrad thing to do a 5 year med school. I know many people who don't look favorably on this practice.

 

[oncology2020]

Ok so I'm a U.S. born citizen who went to pakistan after high school for med school. I had many reasons for going (saves time, admission is a little easier, cheaper). I didn't take the Caribbean route because i'm pakistani and i had some family there that could take care of me if i needed anything. Right now I'm done with my first year and passed all my exams, I'm overall really happy with my life there...not how i expected studying there would be (since i'm on campus almost 24/7 i didn't get a chance to see the 3rd world-ness lol). Only thing that bothers me is the scorching hot weather. Anyways I'm at home in NY for my break and starting to get worried, the more research i do, the more i found out that by the time i'll be trying to match..it'll be extremely hard to get into a residency. I'm not even saying something competitive..people are telling me that in 4 or 5 years there will be so many medical graduates and not enough seats for them. So even IM will be difficult to match into for an IMG. I'm really starting to second guess going to Pak and don't know what to do. My father is a physician but i don't think that will help me at all as this isn't pakistan where you can do whatever you want as long as you have the right connections. Should i just take a chance and follow through and see what happens? or withdraw and enroll in undergrad here? I just turned 19 so i wouldn't really be behind. Sorry for the long rant but i'm just really confused and anxious because i have to deposit fees for my second year in a week and i feel like after i complete second year..there'll be no turning back. This will be the longest week of my life :/

I actually have some Pakistani friends from highschool who are my age who took this route right after high school, they too were US citizens, and are now physicians in the US before I even enter residency--they saved substantial money and time. None of them have ever taken organic chemistry or physics, most of them got C's in high school science courses, never took the the MCAT, neither do they have more than $15,000 in debt while I worked my a$$ off in high school, at a prestigious college, took the MCAT which there is no guarantee you'll do well on, took a gap year, and then at a prestigious med school a much more strenious and time consuming path, and now have $250,000 in debt from premed and med school--and they are going to have the same salary as me so in the end who comes out ahead? They did, they gamed the system and came out successful. Yes, they all trained in community IM programs and don't have the prestige so if that doesnt bother you then stay in Pakistan med school. You can still do fellowship. It can be done but you HAVE to do really well on USMLE Step 1 AND Step 2 CK--this will determine whether you get residency. Plus there is no guarantee that you'll get admissions into a US med school either, it's extremely competitve and a lot of loopholes you have to jump through where one can possibly screw up from organic chemistry/physics/chem/bio to MCAT score--these requirements are purposefully made more difficult to weed people out, plus the extra time invested means lost income potential plus the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt you'll be in, especially if your father is a physician means you won't get much financial aid if any. I would rather just study for USMLE and do well on it which is very doable with time and studying. From talking to my friends, it seems Pakistani US doctors can also get residency training anywhere in the world (UK, Australia, Dubai, etc) while Caribbean grads are more limited--something to do with the med school needing to have a certain percentage of locals to be considered fully accreditted in other nations which Caribbean schools are not since they have mostly students from the US instead of local Caribbean students. Caribbean schools also are for-profit and money making machines so it's MUCH MUCH cheaper to go to a Pakistan school than Caribbean med school. Caribbean students will have it more difficult than you.

(Now having said all this, I would always prefer to have my family be treated by a US educated and trained doctor than an IMG because of the fact that the US born IMG likely gamed the system while the US grads are relatively some the best and brightest. But that's irrelevant to your interests.)

 

[oncology2020]

Urm...so on one hand you've got the normal US route ( undergrads and then med school) and on the other you've got this 5 year course. Both allows you a chance for residency?
But the usual 5 year undergraduate medicine courses are MBBS degrees, right? Would they be treated like an MD program? I don't think so. I guess they would be given very low preference.

So what's the difference between an MBBS degree and an MD one, apart from MD requiring an undergraduate degree? Does the MD degree give you more speciality in a particular field? [sorry for the tangent but this thread gave me some questions]

The Bachelors in Medicine and Bachelors in Surgery (MBBS) degree is equivalent to the MD degree. MBBS degree is also the degree granted to physicians in the UK (its British medical system). Remember, pre-med is a US-construct to make money and to weed out people who couldn't get into medicine (recall how many freshmen enter as pre-meds..). Historically, medical school is considered UNDERGRADUATE medical education (hence the Bachelor's degree in other nations) while residency is considered GRADUATE medical education (GME). And even those that get a MBBS, it can be easily converted to MD once they get ECFMG certification, so IMGs use MD on their ERAS applications once they are ECFMG certified (which is just paperwork they have to submit), even though technically they got a MBBS. Confusing I know..but our pre-med system sucks, waste of time and money.

 

[Psai]

The Bachelors in Medicine and Bachelors in Surgery (MBBS) degree is equivalent to the MD degree. MBBS degree is also the degree granted to physicians in the UK (its British medical system). Remember, pre-med is a US-construct to make money and to weed out people who couldn't get into medicine (recall how many freshmen enter as pre-meds..). Historically, medical school is considered UNDERGRADUATE medical education (hence the Bachelor's degree in other nations) while residency is considered GRADUATE medical education (GME). And even those that get a MBBS, it can be easily converted to MD once they get ECFMG certification, so IMGs use MD on their ERAS applications once they are ECFMG certified (which is just paperwork they have to submit), even though technically they got a MBBS. Confusing I know..but our pre-med system sucks, waste of time and money.

then why do they call it post graduate years

 

[collegestud2013]

I actually have some Pakistani friends from highschool who are my age who took this route right after high school, they too were US citizens, and are now physicians in the US before I even enter residency--they saved substantial money and time. None of them have ever taken organic chemistry or physics, most of them got C's in high school science courses, never took the the MCAT, neither do they have more than $15,000 in debt while I worked my a$$ off in high school, at a prestigious college, took the MCAT which there is no guarantee you'll do well on, took a gap year, and then at a prestigious med school a much more strenious and time consuming path, and now have $250,000 in debt from premed and med school--and they are going to have the same salary as me so in the end who comes out ahead? They did, they gamed the system and came out successful. Yes, they all trained in community IM programs and don't have the prestige so if that doesnt bother you then stay in Pakistan med school. You can still do fellowship. It can be done but you HAVE to do really well on USMLE Step 1 AND Step 2 CK--this will determine whether you get residency. Plus there is no guarantee that you'll get admissions into a US med school either, it's extremely competitve and a lot of loopholes you have to jump through where one can possibly screw up from organic chemistry/physics/chem/bio to MCAT score--these requirements are purposefully made more difficult to weed people out, plus the extra time invested means lost income potential plus the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt you'll be in, especially if your father is a physician means you won't get much financial aid if any. I would rather just study for USMLE and do well on it which is very doable with time and studying. From talking to my friends, it seems Pakistani US doctors can also get residency training anywhere in the world (UK, Australia, Dubai, etc) while Caribbean grads are more limited--something to do with the med school needing to have a certain percentage of locals to be considered fully accreditted in other nations which Caribbean schools are not since they have mostly students from the US instead of local Caribbean students. Caribbean schools also are for-profit and money making machines so it's MUCH MUCH cheaper to go to a Pakistan school than Caribbean med school. Caribbean students will have it more difficult than you.

(Now having said all this, I would always prefer to have my family be treated by a US educated and trained doctor than an IMG because of the fact that the US born IMG likely gamed the system while the US grads are relatively some the best and brightest. But that's irrelevant to your interests.)

Getting a high Step 1 and Step 2 score is going to much easier said that done, especially if OP is going to a foreign medical school where the curriculum is much more different and is geared toward practicing in Pakistan and not the U.S. OP will have to take extra time to learn and study material that the Pakistani medical schools don't cover, and that's in addition to meeting all the testing requirements of his Pakistani medical school. I'm not sure about how rigorous and time consuming medical school in Pakistan is, but chances are he will have to take take at least 2 years off after graduating just to study and take Steps and 1 and 2 if his medical does not allow the time to do it. Also, the research opportunities there may be limited and OP may have to do take time to do research after medical school. Thus the 2-3 additional years off after medical school to study and do research will negate any of the advantages of graduating faster. Going to medical school in Miami right now, I see lots of IMG graduates from Latin American and South American countries who are shadowing, studying, or doing research at my medical school's campus while taking time off before applying to residency, and OP will likely be doing the same. OP should also take a look at the numbers in the Charting the Outcomes document, which clearly shows that for almost every specialty the chances of matching at all will be significantly lower as an independent applicant than as a US graduate for a given specialty and given Step 1 and Step 2 score. The odds don't converge until you get into the ultra high 260+ scores, and this is just matching at all, never mind finding a prestigious or desirable program. And as a previous poster mentioned, matching will become even more difficult as more American medical schools have opened up and these new American graduates will be given priority over IMGs in the residency match process. Finally, OP will be most likely competing for the lower paying, primary care specialties as an IMG, which are generally much lower paying than many of the high paying competitive specialties (that are going to be nearly impossible for an IMG to get in), and could end up making a primary care's salary for his entire career instead of a specialist's salary had he gone to a US medical school. Thus, while you may seen to be saving time and money up front, in the long run the chances of matching into a residency will be much more difficult and will an uphill battle and can easily negate any of the financial benefits of going to an international medical school. If OP wants to do complete his training faster and cheaper, he should have been looking for the combined BS/MD programs in the U.S. that are 6-7 years long and offer merit-based scholarships (assuming his father is a physician it will be very hard to get need-based financial aid); of course these also very competitive to get these into these days and OP probably wouldn't have qualified with his SAT score (most of these have combined programs will have many students with SAT scores above 2200 and essentially qualified to get into Ivies for undergrad; they just chose to go to a lower ranked undergrad for the convenience and cost savings of being in a combined program).

 

[atomi]

230's? Caribbean MD's who match into a specialty have higher step scores than the corresponding US MD's. A FMG from Pakistan is going to have to absolutely kill Step (>250's)

Correct, IMGs and FMGs in particular are expected to have astronomical step scores because they have much, much longer to prepare, in some cases years, for the step exams. A 215 step 1 from a duke grad who had 4 weeks to study is going to carry more weight than the 265 from the foreign grad who studied first aid every day for 12 months.

 

[the argus]

Correct, IMGs and FMGs in particular are expected to have astronomical step scores because they have much, much longer to prepare, in some cases years, for the step exams. A 215 step 1 from a duke grad who had 4 weeks to study is going to carry more weight than the 265 from the foreign grad who studied first aid every day for 12 months.

Again, this is incorrect. Matched IMGs have lower step scores than matched AMGs in basically every specialty.

It's true that within a particular program an IMG might have to score much higher to be competitive with lower scoring AMGs.

But within a given specialty overall, matched IMGs have lower step scores than matched AMGs

 

[charmiedermie]

whats aga khan?

Chaka Khan's sister?

 

[Psai]

Correct, IMGs and FMGs in particular are expected to have astronomical step scores because they have much, much longer to prepare, in some cases years, for the step exams. A 215 step 1 from a duke grad who had 4 weeks to study is going to carry more weight than the 265 from the foreign grad who studied first aid every day for 12 months.

i think both parts of this statement is wrong