Do PD's prefer IMGs from one country over another?

[NeedToStudy]

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This is assuming of course that the student is a US citizen. Assuming that do PDs care where you got your MD degree if you're an IMG? I know they prefer AMG's but if it comes down to an IMG does it matter which country you received your MD degree from? Or does it not matter as long as you have the scores and can speak good english?

 

[Raryn]

This is assuming of course that the student is a US citizen. Assuming that do PDs care where you got your MD degree if you're an IMG? I know they prefer AMG's but if it comes down to an IMG does it matter which country you received your MD degree from? Or does it not matter as long as you have the scores and can speak good english?

The answer to this is probably complicated, but generally yes, it does matter.

Looking at the statistics from the charting outcomes for IMGs that came out last year, the chance of matching as an IMG from a country like the UK, Israel, Japan is almost 100%, pretty close to AMGs in fact. On the other hand, the chance of matching from a country like Grenada (a proxy for St. Georges), Dominica (a proxy for Ross), or a country like India is substantially lower, closer to 60% at best. Maybe 80% for the least competitive specialties and the more competitive applicants.

Taken with a grain of salt, because the data doesn't take all factors into account, the trend is that PDs are more likely to discriminate in favor of people who trained primarily in other "western" or "developed" countries. That makes some sense. That said, there's approximately 4000 residency programs across >20 specialties in this country, and the PDs have as many preferences as there are people. Many of them might not care. Many of them might have personal experiences with medical grads from country X that lead them to think well (or poorly) of grads from that country. Etc. But the general trend is that the richer the country you graduate from, the better off you'll be.

 

[123tbd]

Data from the ECFMG charting outcomes (page 22):

http://www.ecfmg.org/resources/NRMP...atch-International-Medical-Graduates-2014.pdf

Just a select list of countries:

2013 Match, all specialties:​

Non-US IMG Data--true IMGs

Country of school Matched Unmatched Total % Matching
Saba 68 29 97 70.10%
Ireland 46 20 66 69.70%
Venezuela 50 32 82 60.98%
Grenada 155 103 258 60.08%
Germany 39 32 71 54.93%
South Korea 30 29 59 50.85%
Mexico 42 46 88 47.73%
Saudi Arabia 51 64 115 44.35%
India 754 1207 1961 38.45%
China 116 207 323 35.91%


US IMG Data-No visa issues.

Country of school Matched Unmatched Total % Matching
Saba 45 33 78 57.7%
Israel 90 29 119 75.6%
Grenada 534 258 792 67.4%

Can't find the 100% match data for UK, Israel or Japan. But only if there were more than 50 applicants from a country, that country was listed in the ECFMG charting outcomes.

In general some countries like Japan or Sweden probably have a better match rate since very few, less than 50 per year as per ECFMG, want to do a residency in the US to begin with. The ones that are keen on coming here are probably well qualified and picky about where they train. Someone applying from Uppsala is probably looking only at the top programs here.

LIkewise if just the best performing students from St. George, for instance, participated in the match, their match rate would be high too.

Also, if PDs favored rich countries, Germany and South Korea should have a higher match rate...

 

[Law2Doc]

This is assuming of course that the student is a US citizen. Assuming that do PDs care where you got your MD degree if you're an IMG? I know they prefer AMG's but if it comes down to an IMG does it matter which country you received your MD degree from? Or does it not matter as long as you have the scores and can speak good english?

PDs like to go back to the wells that worked out in the past. So if a place had good luck with a Resident from a particular school, they are absolutely going to consider that program more highly than one they are less familiar with. And the converse, if a guy didn't work out so well. and obviously there is going to be preference of education systems that are nationally well regarded as compared to those we really don't know much about here in the states. So yes it matters.

 

[jakeislove]

I've been told certain programs have higher percentages of IMGs from the PD's home country. It's probably not a big deal considering how many programs don't take IMGs.