Foreigner to EM?

[Sage880]

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Hello! Not sure if this is the place for this question but I thought I'd give it a try.

I'm a Canadian citizen trained in an Irish medical school who'd love to work in the US doing EM when I graduate. I still have 2 more years of medical school to go and got over 240 on USMLE step 1. Have been in the top 10% of the class for the first 3 years so far of medical school.

I'm not too picky about where I practice but obviously prefer some states over others. My dream would be to get a residency spot in either Denver or Phoenix as I absolutely love those cities - I have no idea how competitive they are for residency programs.

I've heard though that post 9/11 they are not really offering any visas anymore for medical training besides the J1. Not sure if anyone here knows anything about this but you never know.

The reason I'm asking is I need to schedule a summer elective for next summer and have to make a decision this year about whether I will focus on applying and working in either Canada or the US.

If anyone has any experience with this or knows anyone who's been in the same situation I'd love to hear from you. I honestly have no idea about how likely these dreams are so thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

-Sage

 

[Sage880]

No foreigners in EM, eh? Well, at least not that many it seems. Bad sign for me!!

 

[BKN]

No foreigners in EM, eh? Well, at least not that many it seems. Bad sign for me!!

Do a search. Difficult but not impossible.

NRMP results 2007: PGY-1 EM 1288 positions, 1282 filled, 1027 us seniors, 51 us grads, 2 5th pathway, 58 us citizen IMG, 120 dos, 1 canadian, 23 Foreign citizen IMGs.

There may have been others through prematch, but not many I would imagine.

So IMGs with superior credentials or specific relationships with a program may have a chance. I think the most friendly training programs for IMGs may be in New York, which has about 3x more house staff positions than the other state of similar population (Texas).

p.s. Denver is extremely competitive, Phoenix merely very competitive IMneverHO. Search in programs' websites for their residents rosters. this may give a hint as to which places have accepted IMGs.

 

[Sage880]

Hey, thanks. I have searched and seen the reports but it's tough to get answers about stuff like this. I've seen that not many IMG's get in through the match but it's hard to sort through the stories about people pre-matching into EM to get any sort of idea about how often it happens. The match statistics alone don't paint a very hopefull picture but I guess it's not impossible either.

Also, I can't seem to find any info on what kind of visas are available and offered to the people who do match into EM. The word on the street is that they only offer J1 visas now but I haven't heard this from anyone who knows what they're talking about. I'm trying to find out what happens to the majority of IMGs when they finish their EM residency. Do most people end up leaving the US and going back to their own countries? Do any of you have any colleagues that are IMGs in EM and know what their situation is?

I was hoping to run into an IGM here who'd been though the process and could offer some insight to it. Not to try and make other people look up statistics and do all my leg work for me 🙂.

 

[deleted77919]

I was hoping to run into an IGM here who'd been though the process and could offer some insight to it. Not to try and make other people look up statistics and do all my leg work for me 🙂.

I'm afraid you won't find many antibodies on this forum . . .

 

[Febrifuge]

I'll admit, I was kind of hoping this thread was started by Lou Gramm, wondering about a career change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreigner_(band)