IMG and General Surgery

[Gmsurgeon95]

Hi,
I am an European medical student at his last year of medical school. I want to do surgery in the USA, but the problem is that i was not able to prepare usmle step1 during my university exams and so i will graduate on June of next year without US hands on clinical experience. I know that categorical general surgery position is really competitive.
My questions are:
if i work for 2/3 years as a research fellow and i have big scores in usmle such as 250 could i match into a categorical position? i will do observerships also but i think that don't have the same value of hands on.
do you know any possibilities to do hands on in surgery after medical degree?

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[FutureDoctor5000]

Don’t do it. No chance with the great influx of MD and DO grads. Gen surg is very hard for imgs

 

[CidHighwind]

Those are all big ifs... if you do end up doing all that you may still end up having to settle for a surgery prelim, and even that isn’t any guarantee that they’ll take you.

 

[Gmsurgeon95]

Another possibility is taking step1 and doing rotations but i have to postpone my degree of one year. Is it considered a big red flag? we have 6 years of medical school (without pre-med)... So 7 years with step1 and surgical rotations...
(In my country surgical education is terrible)

 

[GoSpursGo]

I have to agree with the above, even IMGs with Step 1 score >250 have a <50% chance of matching over the last 5 years, and last year it was <40%:

Clearly it's not impossible, since someone is getting those slots, but if you go for it you need to understand going in that even if everything goes completely according to plan (you crush step 1, you land a research position at a place with a GS program that accepts IMGs, and you get some observerships) that chances are that you are still more likely to fail than succeed. If you're willing to accept those odds, then go for it.

Observerships are basically your only chance for USCE after you graduate, and as you've correctly assessed these are not given as much weight as a real rotation where you get to participate. But if it's all you can get it's better than nothing.

EDIT: My best guess is that if you could delay graduation for a year and this would allow you to do an actual rotation in GS in the US that would be worth it. But before you go down that route make sure that's something that's feasible and that there is actually a mechanism in place that would allow you to do a visiting rotation. If for example nobody from your school has done a US rotation in many years, I wouldn't just assume that you could apply through VSAS and get a spot.

 

[Gmsurgeon95]

My school does not partecipate in VSAS... thank you very much for your suggestions.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Your chances aren't very good, even with an excellent app. Your best chance will likely be 1. getting high scores on USMLE (250+), and then doing multiple years of research at an institution where you can make connections to either get in that institution's program or have some important people make calls and land you somewhere else.