I want to do psychiatry

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plsfoldthx

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Hey all. I'm a recent college grad who wants to do psychiatry and I am thinking of applying to caribbean schools for several reasons. I'm 24 now and have been out of school for a year and didn't apply last year because I hadn't taken the MCATs. I'm taking it on April 23 and I have been scoring about high 20s low 30s on my MCATs. I have 2 questions.

If I apply by June this year to the big 4 caribbean schools, how likely is it for me to be able to start this fall? I am planning to apply to US MD/DO schools this year, but the process seems really tedious and would like to start as soon as possible.

I feel like I would most likely want to do something in the order of Psychiatry, Emergency, IM, FP. I know that it is much harder for Carib MDs to obtain good residency spots. How tough is it to get into an academic residency in these specialties from a caribbean school?

Thanks for your help.

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the big 4 school will wait till you get your MCAT scores to look at your application, if your application is complete in June it's not likely that you'll be able to start in Aug, most likely you'll be able to start in Jan. You should try your hardest to get into a US MD/DO school. Your chance of matching into a residency almost double if you go to a US MD/DO school. Table 4 shows that the percent of US Seniors who matched was 93%, ~70% of DO students matched, and 47.3% of US-IMGs (ie carib students) matched.

http://www.nrmp.org/data/advancedatatables2010.pdf

Academic residencys ie university programs are much tougher to get on average than community residency programs, depending on the specialty and your grades/board scores in med school it might be easy or it might be virtually impossible, there are a ton of variables. but over all you'll have at least a twice as hard of a time getting a residency if you go to a carib school. The average age for a first year medical student in the US is 26, so you still have time. Apply to US medical schools frist and then if you don't get in apply to Carib schools. Carib schools should be your last option.
 
Thanks RussianJoo, I think I will try for US schools first. Just one more question. If I start in January, what does that mean for years 3 and 4 and eventually matching? Does that mean I will have to find something else to do for 2 quarters while the next cycle catches up with me?
 
you have extra time to study for the board exams, or more vacation time. It's almost impossible to catch up to the Aug class in fron of you. I was in the January term it was great I had much more time to study for the board exams and had got my residency application and letters of recomendation done sooner.
 
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