Medical IMG graduated 5 years ago. Now what?

[Question]

My friend graduated medical school in his home country 5 years ago.
Afterward he married a US citizen and moved to the US.
During this time he worked non-medical jobs to support his family.
Now that things are more stable, he is trying to retake the step exams (he passed these before, but they have expired) and apply to residency.
Given everything I read here, matching seems extremely challenging. Realistically, what options does he have?

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[GoSpursGo]

Bottom line, it is extremely unlikely that he will ever get accepted to a residency program with a 5-year non-medical gap in his CV. He did what he needed to do for his own personal life, but being out of practice for that long especially as an IMG is going to make it very hard to get into a residency. I would recommend he continue with his current career.

If he insists on at least giving this a go... then I think he should take USMLE step 1 and 2. If he fails either of those, or doesn't score well on step 2 (step 1 is P/F) then he's done. If he scores well on step 2, then the next box he would need to check is gaining US clinical experience. This is very difficult to find and likely would require him to give up his current career and pursue something else like being a research coordinator at an academic medical center, or something like that, where they may also be willing to allow him to do some observerships or get patient contact.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Very tough road. Would need US residency. The 5 years out of practice is going to be tough to overcome.

 

[PerioDont]

Like said above, if he takes the step exams he may still have a shot.

Yep. I know a few people like this that ended up going back to PA school after a few years of trying to get back in to medicine. maybe just consider that as an option upfront

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Repeating medical school in the US is basically not an option. He's already graduated from medical school, almost none will consider him at all.

There is one exception: The NYCOM Emigre program. This is a DO school that considers international grads.

He cannot simply "retake the USMLE exams", usually. USMLE exam scores never expire (per the USMLE). Once passed, you can't take them again. However, certain states have created time limits for taking the exams to get licensed. In order to qualify to take the exams again, he would need to apply for a license in one of those states, meet all of the other requirements, and then the USMLE will allow him to retake the step. But since all states require US clinical experience for a license, he won't qualify for a license, and hence this isn't going to be an option.

I agree that just applying to spots with no US experience and no clinical experience at all in 5 years is very unlikely to be successful.

SO either he needs to find a way to get some US clinical experience (which is very difficult as a prior grad, usually involves "connections" of some sort), consider PA school, or the NYCOM program above.