FMG Matched Dermatology on first try w/o fellowship here

[IzzyMD09]

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It was miraculous, something of biblical proportions

but I digress,

I come from an Israeli medical school, with many friends in the Caribbean, and in other Israeli schools like the Technion, and like most carib students, they didnt match in the regular match or the scramble,

I am trying to figure out why, when I looked at available scramble positions, I saw something shocking, most prelims/transitionals/categoricals/and advanced spots filled during the general match, in positions I never thought would... FM, IM, Psych, Path....

When I started school here, in my orientation packet there was an NEJM article stating the 16,000 AMG's were left to fill 22,000 spots, with FMG's filling in the rest, however this is not the case anymore.

I fear for the future of carib schools and other fmg schools, I believe students may continue to be duped into paying ever increasing costs of tuition with nothing to show for it after 4 years. Isn't there litigation that can curb this,

I know myself, I wouldnt reccommend my program to a student even after busting my behind and matching derm (which I did w/o the help of my administration save a few). The time where going off-shore to obtain an MD may have passed.

There is a lot of sentiment as well biasing and prejudicing FMG's these days, in almost all my rotations I received many glares, looks, and adverse comments regarding my school its accreditation etc...

I wish all of you who didnt match or scramble the best of luck, my thoughts and prayers are with you!!!

 

[Raigon]

It was miraculous, something of biblical proportions

but I digress,

I come from an Israeli medical school, with many friends in the Caribbean, and in other Israeli schools like the Technion, and like most carib students, they didnt match in the regular match or the scramble,

I am trying to figure out why, when I looked at available scramble positions, I saw something shocking, most prelims/transitionals/categoricals/and advanced spots filled during the general match, in positions I never thought would... FM, IM, Psych, Path....

When I started school here, in my orientation packet there was an NEJM article stating the 16,000 AMG's were left to fill 22,000 spots, with FMG's filling in the rest, however this is not the case anymore.

I fear for the future of carib schools and other fmg schools, I believe students may continue to be duped into paying ever increasing costs of tuition with nothing to show for it after 4 years. Isn't there litigation that can curb this,

I know myself, I wouldnt reccommend my program to a student even after busting my behind and matching derm (which I did w/o the help of my administration save a few). The time where going off-shore to obtain an MD may have passed.

There is a lot of sentiment as well biasing and prejudicing FMG's these days, in almost all my rotations I received many glares, looks, and adverse comments regarding my school its accreditation etc...

I wish all of you who didnt match or scramble the best of luck, my thoughts and prayers are with you!!!

Congratulations! Do you think school reputation will make a difference in program directors' eyes? Or will they just treat all IMGs like **** (sorry for the vocabulary)?

Remind me to ask you for advice 4 years later when I need to match (going to Australia for medical school!)

 

[IzzyMD09]

but you are an FMG, and because of that your application will get thrown in the trash no matter where you go if you are not from the US

3 PD's told me over the phone, my application did not make the initial screen which was to remove any foregin medical students or IMG's or whatever we are calling ourselves now

There are many screens and many piles, if you pass the first screen, you get to go onto the board score screen, then if you pass that, there are others, you have to make it so they see your board scores, which have to rock, you need like 20 points higher then your US counterparts, and even then, that first screen is still there

IMG/FMG's are a dying breed in terms of placements into residencies, get used to that for sure, no matter which school you go to

 

[Raigon]

but you are an FMG, and because of that your application will get thrown in the trash no matter where you go if you are not from the US

3 PD's told me over the phone, my application did not make the initial screen which was to remove any foregin medical students or IMG's or whatever we are calling ourselves now

There are many screens and many piles, if you pass the first screen, you get to go onto the board score screen, then if you pass that, there are others, you have to make it so they see your board scores, which have to rock, you need like 20 points higher then your US counterparts, and even then, that first screen is still there

IMG/FMG's are a dying breed in terms of placements into residencies, get used to that for sure, no matter which school you go to

I understand that they will face discrimination. To clear things up a bit though, FMG is who people from foreign universities who do not have US citizenship. IMG is an international medical graduate who are American students studying medicine in a different country (They have US citizenship). IMGs have a slight edge over FMG because we have citizenship, but not by much.

I do understand that FMG/IMGs are looked down upon. I'm barely going to start medical school and I don't have to worry about the match until 4 years later, but I know I have to score higher, arrange my own clerkships/clinical rotations in the US, get US LoRs etc.

And the fact that YOU made it to a GOOD and COMPETITIVE school made it seem not so impossible. That's why I wanted to ask you for advice, because you are one of the few that shined in a program director's eyes and allowed you to match into dermatology. And which is why I may be hoping to ask you for help in a few years, if you don't mind, and your experience on how you got in (even if it was by a stroke of sheer luck).

Thanks! And congratulations again!

 

[thinker]

I understand ...

FMG or IMG.. same thing. That would have been US IMG.

 

[Raigon]

FMG or IMG.. same thing. That would have been US IMG.

Ah okay. I need to get my terms more organized. =="

 

[Winged Scapula]

FMG or IMG.. same thing. That would have been US IMG.

Not same thing. Raigon is using the terms correctly, or at least how they have more recently been used.

The term US-IMG term is a recent invention but most PDs and US faculty do use the term FMG to refer to students trained abroad.

The term IMG is a more recent invention and while some would like to add the US to it and prefer it over FMG, you can't change decades of use amongst medical faculty.

 

[thinker]

Yeah I used to hear the term FMG more in earlier times.. actually when I first heard IMG I didn't know what it meant right away.

But if you look here at page 8 http://www.nrmp.org/data/resultsanddata2009.pdf

they categorize us as either US. IMG or Non-US IMG.. Never seen them mention FMG. It's probably an older term and definitely misleading and unclear.

Foreign Medical Graduate.. just judging from the name.. should imply that the medical graduate is actually foreign, not that the school is foreign

 

[Raigon]

Yeah I used to hear the term FMG more in earlier times.. actually when I first heard IMG I didn't know what it meant right away.

But if you look here at page 8 http://www.nrmp.org/data/resultsanddata2009.pdf

they categorize us as either US. IMG or Non-US IMG.. Never seen them mention FMG. It's probably an older term and definitely misleading and unclear.

Foreign Medical Graduate.. just judging from the name.. should imply that the medical graduate is actually foreign, not that the school is foreign

To tell you the truth, there isn't really any standard vocabulary for US and non-US citizen foreign medical school graduates. IMGs/FMGs/US-IMGs, NON-US IMGs are just terms used by residency programs and research projects to refer to the "non-American medical school graduates" and these terms are often used differently by different people and changes with time.

But the most common version as of now (and on SDN) would be as Winged_Scapula said "IMGs and FMGs". Never heard of US-IMGs and Non-US-IMGs before... that's a first. 😕

 

[BrainBuff]

IMGs have a slight edge over FMG because we have citizenship, but not by much.

This is total BS. In fact, it is the other way around. Americans with foreign medical school degrees are considered weaker applicants than those foreign born students that happened to attend a medical school in their own country. If you are american and did not go to the US medical school, the general perception is that you were not competitive. That is not the case with the foreign born students.

 

[Raigon]

This is total BS. In fact, it is the other way around. Americans with foreign medical school degrees are considered weaker applicants than those foreign born students that happened to attend a medical school in their own country. If you are american and did not go to the US medical school, the general perception is that you were not competitive. That is not the case with the foreign born students.

I'm just basing facts off the match rate during the recent years from one of the resident SDN members (if you want to know who, then by all means PM me and I'll tell you):

If you are not a US citizen on AVERAGE you have a 39 percent chance of matching into an AVERAGE level residency spot (meaning family medicine, or internal medicine, or pediatrics).

If you are a US citizen on AVERAGE you have a 47 percent chance of matching into an AVERAGE level residency spot (see above for examples).

And by the way, just because you are an American who didn't go to a US medical school doesn't mean you are weaker than the other foreign born medical students. There are Americans who were born but moved to other countries during childhood and attend medical schools there. There are also Americans who study abroad for the international experience. It does NOT NECESSARILY mean we could not make it to a US medical school.

And citizens have hometurf advantage because they have citizenship and the residency programs don't have to sponsor you to get to work here and cover a whole lot of ridiculously expensive things and take responsibility for a whole lot of crap when they already have a lot of patients causing them trouble already.

And even if FMGs were deemed more competitive then IMGs, if an IMG has a score of 270/99 with good clinical skills, good letters of recommendations, who gives a crap if he or she didn't attend a US medical school?

 

[Phur]

It's 6 of one and half dozen of the other...

A lot of places don't want to sponsor a VISA or have concerns about communication skills. On the other hand, FMG's tend to (not always) require less teaching because they've trained in their home country, and many have extremely good academic records.

US-IMG's don't require a VISA and don't have the language barrier/accent, but tend to (not always) be weaker academically with lower board scores, less research, etc.

Some places won't interview either. There is so much variability between programs you can't generalize one over the other. Based on the ECFMG stats in the last letter they sent out (referred to in Raigon's post), US citizenship does appear to play a role.