Fellowship after Residency from Ross?

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just want to point out that USMLE step 1 is pass fail only now...so going to Ross is an even poorer decision, as residencies will tilt more to name brand schools than ever before without the step 1 score as an equalizer.
I’d really caution people against Caribbean schools. The only thing that would make them competitive in the past was a very strong Step 1 (and otherwise unblemished record). That’s true of all FMGs. But now with step 1 being p/f, and with the merger with DO, I would say it’ll be very difficult to stay competitive.
>7000 IMGs start residency in the US every year. The vast majority of these IMGs are not outcompeting US grads for residency positions. They are matching because the US graduate medical education system requires >7000 more trainees to start every year than the US undergraduate medical system produces.

The fact that step 1 is now pass/fail in no way changes these numbers. It's not like IMGs are pass/fail but will now be competing against people that have step 1 scores. Residency programs will have to find new criteria for evaluating people, but everyone will still ultimately be judged on the same criteria as everyone else.

And news flash, most residency programs already use where you graduated from medical school as a MAJOR factor in how they evaluate applicants. Just because step 1 is pass/fail does not mean that programs that draw from medical schools like harvard, hopkins, and penn are all of a sudden going to start taking grads from drexel and east tennessee state. Caribbean grads will continue to be competitive for the same tier of residency programs they always have been.

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>7000 IMGs start residency in the US every year. The vast majority of these IMGs are not outcompeting US grads for residency positions. They are matching because the US graduate medical education system requires >7000 more trainees to start every year than the US undergraduate medical system produces.

The fact that step 1 is now pass/fail in no way changes these numbers. It's not like IMGs are pass/fail but will now be competing against people that have step 1 scores. Residency programs will have to find new criteria for evaluating people, but everyone will still ultimately be judged on the same criteria as everyone else.

And news flash, most residency programs already use where you graduated from medical school as a MAJOR factor in how they evaluate applicants. Just because step 1 is pass/fail does not mean that programs that draw from medical schools like harvard, hopkins, and penn are all of a sudden going to start taking grads from drexel and east tennessee state. Caribbean grads will continue to be competitive for the same tier of residency programs they always have been.
Disagree with you. IMGs always required high scores to compensate. Take that away and it becomes a lot more difficult. Top US-FMG could usually reach the level of average student from mid-tier USMD. Now they will not because you cannot tell who was top and who barely passed, and will thus need to rely on other factors.
 
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Disagree with you. IMGs always required high scores to compensate. Take that away and it becomes a lot more difficult. Top US-FMG could usually reach the level of average student from mid-tier USMD. Now they will not because you cannot tell who was top and who barely passed, and will thus need to rely on other factors.
I mean they'll just shift to other comparable things such as CK and USCE. This hurts IMGs gunning for competitive specialties but won't change much for the people that are going for the typical community IM/FM/Peds which is what ~75% of our grads match into anyways.

This will hurt visa requiring IMGs and IMGs without significant USCE as I'm sure that will play a bigger factor now; both of which don't affect most carib students.
 
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Disagree with you. IMGs always required high scores to compensate. Take that away and it becomes a lot more difficult. Top US-FMG could usually reach the level of average student from mid-tier USMD. Now they will not because you cannot tell who was top and who barely passed, and will thus need to rely on other factors.
They will rely more heavily on CK then and will still have a test with a numeric score to compare people.

Are you saying it will make it harder for IMGs to match at higher tier programs? Maybe, but I don't think so. As above, there will still be numerical scores to compare.

But overall it's not going to make it harder for IMGs to match, as there is literally no one else available to fill these GME spots. And besides, the majority of IMGs (US and foreign) are not competing with USMD graduates for residency. There's not a big cohort of unmatched USMDs because a caribbean grad took their spot.
 
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I mean they'll just shift to other comparable things such as CK and USCE. This hurts IMGs gunning for competitive specialties but won't change much for the people that are going for the typical community IM/FM/Peds which is what ~75% of our grads match into anyways.

This will hurt visa requiring IMGs and IMGs without significant USCE as I'm sure that will play a bigger factor now; both of which don't affect most carib students.
Where I am in Michigan, Ross has partnerships with two major hospitals, St. Joseph Mercy being one. All their residents for radiology come mostly from Ross. No resident comes from a USMD/DO school. I use radiology as an example, but this is across the board. St. Joseph Mercy is one of the top hospitals in the state

Can anyone explain this to me?
 
Where I am in Michigan, Ross has partnerships with two major hospitals, St. Joseph Mercy being one. All their residents for radiology come mostly from Ross. No resident comes from a USMD/DO school. I use radiology as an example, but this is across the board. St. Joseph Mercy is one of the top hospitals in the state

Can anyone explain this to me?

maybe because... just because you went to Ross, doesn’t mean you are not a fantastic candidate? These residents do many rotations at that hospital during medical school and are able to show exactly how good they are.
 
Where I am in Michigan, Ross has partnerships with two major hospitals, St. Joseph Mercy being one. All their residents for radiology come mostly from Ross. No resident comes from a USMD/DO school. I use radiology as an example, but this is across the board. St. Joseph Mercy is one of the top hospitals in the state

Can anyone explain this to me?
Ask them how their step scores and grades were. If they were USMD they’d likely be at UM. There are always exceptions and personal connections (even if it’s just a matter of PD or attendings having a tie) but I stand by my claim that without step scores it’ll be much harder in the future for IMGs.
 
Where I am in Michigan, Ross has partnerships with two major hospitals, St. Joseph Mercy being one. All their residents for radiology come mostly from Ross. No resident comes from a USMD/DO school. I use radiology as an example, but this is across the board. St. Joseph Mercy is one of the top hospitals in the state

Can anyone explain this to me?
I presume you're talking about St Joseph Mercy Oakland. Just because you are a "top" hospital (whatever that means, according to who?) does not mean that it has competitive training programs.

There are 18 residents listed on their website. 7 are from Ross, 5 are from other Caribbean schools, and the rest are other misc IMGs. This suggests this is a very not competitive program to get into. The US graduate medical education system requires >7000 more first years trainees each year than the US undergraduate medical education system produces. You therefore end up with the less competitive programs being filled entirely with people who did medical school outside of the US (both US citizens and foreign nationals).

It's likely not competitive due to it's location and hospital type, a community hospital in suburban Detroit. Not exactly most people's ideal training environment. There are 10 radiology residency programs in Michigan, and this is most certainly in the bottom echelon, which also makes it in the bottom echelon of programs nationally.

The high number of Ross grads is probably because US-IMGs are generally favored over foreign-IMGs (visa status, ease of cultural assimilation), and Ross rotates at that hospital so likely all the candidates were known to the program (i.e. had auditioned prior to the match).
 
Ask them how their step scores and grades were. If they were USMD they’d likely be at UM. There are always exceptions and personal connections (even if it’s just a matter of PD or attendings having a tie) but I stand by my claim that without step scores it’ll be much harder in the future for IMGs.
You can stand by your claim but still have not provided any good reason why this would be the case.

The overall applicant pool will not be changing. The step 1 change applies to every single applicant, not just IMGs.

The US graduate medical education system requires >7000 more bodies on a yearly basis than the US undergraduate medical education system provides. The vast number of programs that take IMGs do not take them because they have outcompeted the US grads via their step 1 score. The programs take IMGs because they literally have no other choice. There are not enough US grads to fill these positions. Step 1 changing to pass/fail doesn't change that simple fact.
 
I presume you're talking about St Joseph Mercy Oakland. Just because you are a "top" hospital (whatever that means, according to who?) does not mean that it has competitive training programs.

There are 18 residents listed on their website. 7 are from Ross, 5 are from other Caribbean schools, and the rest are other misc IMGs. This suggests this is a very not competitive program to get into. The US graduate medical education system requires >7000 more first years trainees each year than the US undergraduate medical education system produces. You therefore end up with the less competitive programs being filled entirely with people who did medical school outside of the US (both US citizens and foreign nationals).

It's likely not competitive due to it's location and hospital type, a community hospital in suburban Detroit. Not exactly most people's ideal training environment. There are 10 radiology residency programs in Michigan, and this is most certainly in the bottom echelon, which also makes it in the bottom echelon of programs nationally.

The high number of Ross grads is probably because US-IMGs are generally favored over foreign-IMGs (visa status, ease of cultural assimilation), and Ross rotates at that hospital so likely all the candidates were known to the program (i.e. had auditioned prior to the match).
Does it matter where a person does their residency?

I like internal medicine, cardiology specialty, oncology and radiology. I personally would be happy with any program in those fields.

I got a 3.5 GPA/510 MCAT and am ORM. I was complete kind of late, have had no positive responses thus far and am wondering if I should get started on this path at Ross. Any advice would be appreciated
 
Does it matter where a person does their residency?

I like internal medicine, cardiology specialty, oncology and radiology. I personally would be happy with any program in those fields.

I got a 3.5 GPA/510 MCAT and am ORM. I was complete kind of late, have had no positive responses thus far and am wondering if I should get started on this path at Ross. Any advice would be appreciated
Literally everything you listed besides IM and rads is a fellowship and it would definitely matter where you do a residency for those.
 
You can stand by your claim but still have not provided any good reason why this would be the case.

The overall applicant pool will not be changing. The step 1 change applies to every single applicant, not just IMGs.

The US graduate medical education system requires >7000 more bodies on a yearly basis than the US undergraduate medical education system provides. The vast number of programs that take IMGs do not take them because they have outcompeted the US grads via their step 1 score. The programs take IMGs because they literally have no other choice. There are not enough US grads to fill these positions. Step 1 changing to pass/fail doesn't change that simple fact.
It’s my prediction. In just the past 10 years there have been many new medical schools. Getting primary care won’t be a big problem. The problem is for anything more competitive. Look at it from a PD’s standpoint. Your goal is to get someone who doesn’t have academic challenges because having any board failures is a major stain on the program. So now you have to choose based on the average student of the program. Take an “average US grad” or “average Carib grad”, which is the safer option?
 
Does it matter where a person does their residency?

I like internal medicine, cardiology specialty, oncology and radiology. I personally would be happy with any program in those fields.

I got a 3.5 GPA/510 MCAT and am ORM. I was complete kind of late, have had no positive responses thus far and am wondering if I should get started on this path at Ross. Any advice would be appreciated
That is a very complicated question. As mentioned above, 2 of those are residencies and 2 are IM fellowships.

If you just want to do general IM (hospitalist, primary care) then it doesn't really matter where you do residency. If you do residency at a small community hospital it would probably be hard to get a job at a major academic center afterwards, but for most general IM jobs where you do residency doesn't matter. Same goes for general diagnostic radiology.

Cardiology and oncology are 2 of the more competitive IM subspecialties (along with GI and pulm crit). Where you do residency definitely matters, especially for a caribbean grad. It is much harder to match those fellowships from a community IM program compared to a university program. Not impossible, but definitely much harder.

It sounds like you should spend some researching medical careers and figuring out what you actually want. Going to a caribbean school with an undifferentiated career plan is a bad idea. Obviously plans can change, but you should at least start with a realistic idea of what your potential career paths are and what you would need to do to get there. For caribbean grads, and also US DO grads, specialty choice and program tier within specialty is limited. You should proceed through training with that in mind in order to ultimately end up with a career you're happy with.
 
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It’s my prediction. In just the past 10 years there have been many new medical schools.
And yet the number of IMGs starting residency every year is higher than it was 10 years ago.
Getting primary care won’t be a big problem. The problem is for anything more competitive. Look at it from a PD’s standpoint. Your goal is to get someone who doesn’t have academic challenges because having any board failures is a major stain on the program. So now you have to choose based on the average student of the program. Take an “average US grad” or “average Carib grad”, which is the safer option?
Again, your position presupposes that currently there is a large number of IMGs taking positions away from US grads based solely on their numerical performance on Step 1. I just don't think the data supports that notion. Look at the most recent NRMP PD survey.


While 90% of PDs said they use Step 1 score when deciding who to interview, the importance of step 1 score was only rated at 4.0, which is the same as CK score, dean's letter, grades in clerkships, class rank, MSPE. This importance score is lower than LORs, commitment to specialty, leadership qualities, professionalism, etc.

When it comes to how PDs actually rank applicants, only 67% said they even use Step 1 score, and the importance of it was down to 3.9 which is actually lower than CK (4.0). It was way lower than things like interpersonal skills, interactions with faculty/staff, LORs, professionalism, etc.

So you keep saying how important Step 1 score is for IMGs. The data just doesn't back this up.
 
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