If not accepted to any US MD schools, would you rather go DO or to a Caribbean MD school?

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You can do a search on this site to find as much information as you could ever possibly want on the dangers of Caribbean schools. I will summarize for you: Caribbean medical schools are a very expensive gamble, with residency placement rates far below US schools (MD or DO). That's all I'm gonna say on the topic, as it's been discussed here ad nauseum.
 
I'd go to the Caribbean, but only so I could return to SDN four years later and make a thread titled "IMG applying for rural family medicine, Step 1 272 and Step 2 268, no interviews - Help!", then when everyone is like "You're SOL dude, shouldn't have gone to the Carribean" I can have a really dramatic moment where the camera zooms in to my tear streamed face and I cry "Why didn't I listen??". It sounds pretty glamorous, I know, but in the end I decided on a US MD because I don't care much for the beach.
 
You guys are forgetting about the new ultra luxury high end elite MD program opening up this fall at Trump University, all you need is a small donation of a million dollars and you can become the best physician on the face of the planet guaranteed to match into whatever specialty that you desire!
 
You guys are forgetting about the new ultra luxury high end elite MD program opening up this fall at Trump University, all you need is a small donation of a million dollars and you can become the best physician on the face of the planet guaranteed to match into whatever specialty that you desire!
Can I get a small loan of a million dollars to make that small donation?
 
I'd go Caribbean. Must be much more relaxing to practice medicine there. Just not sure how much a physician can be making in Caribbean so as to figure out the number of years needed for paying back the student loan.
 
My cousin didn't get into any schools during his first MD only cycle so went to the Caribbean due to family pressure. He attended SGU for orientation, never signed anything so technically didn't matriculate, flew back to the states in 2 days and started applying to DO schools. He is very happy with his decision.
 
Some peeps know they want extremely competitive specialties so for them its US MD or bust.

If they can't do well enough on the MCAT and undergrad coursework to get into an MD to begin with, do you really think they will all of a sudden get honors in every med school course and be top 5% in the boards?
 
as I've said often, before considering any offshore school applicant must go through at least two application cycles for both MD and DO with a break in between for application repair and/or enhancement. the break is necessary to analyze and understand the weaknesses in an application. Repair may be as simple as reorganizing rewriting application or it may require postbacc, SMP, MCAT, or additional extracurricular such as clinical volunteering and other items. I strongly advise that no student should consider off shore schools until the above has been done.
I was referring to the part about giving up DO to reapply part.
 
If they can't do well enough on the MCAT and undergrad coursework to get into an MD to begin with, do you really think they will all of a sudden get honors in every med school course and be top 5% in the boards?

There are plenty of people with good MCATs and GPAs that get shut out from MD schools every year. Those 2 factors are really just the starting point for US admissions. And there are people at caribbean schools who manage to get awesome step 1 scores. I definitely think anyone who gets into a US MD school has the potential for that type of performance, even if it takes more than one try. Also some people just want to keep as many options as possible open.
 
Wouldnt it makes sense on a second cycle to apply to MD and DO? If you apply MD only again and get rejected again, what do you then do? Spend yet another year waiting and then finally apply DO or just run off to the Caribbean. Sounds like an inefficient use of time and resources for a applicant who already has faced two cycles of failure to gain acceptance
I agree. But I'm asking why do the second cycle if you ALREADY have the DO acceptance? That is what i am getting at. Unless I am misreading the scenario...
 
DO, always choose America if you want to practice in America. If you have research interests, you want to do academic medicine, and/or want to more competitive specialties, it may be in your interest to wait a cycle and go for MD. While curriculum wise MD and DO are equal, we all know which one residencies prefer
 
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