Int' School After DO Dismissal

[Two Sides]

In January I was dismissed from a US DO school since I failed a course during academic probation - aka failed a course while repeating a year. I have since taken a job at a health IT company and after working w/ providers, I really want to give another shot at medical school. I know the chances of a residency are slim, but there is nothing else I want to do with my life. I have been looking at some international schools, and I stumbled across Italian schools that cost roughly $5k/yr. I really would like some input into what international schools are cost-effective.

My gpa is low since I heavily utilized the now defunct DO grade replacement program - think maybe in the low 2.0s.

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[gyngyn]

There was an insufficient number of US IMG's from Italy to constitute an acceptable sample size in the only year that such data exist.
See page 22: https://www.ecfmg.org/resources/NRM...atch-International-Medical-Graduates-2014.pdf

 

[NotAProgDirector]

The unfortunate truth is that this is a really bad idea. If there was a high quality medical school in Italy, that only cost $5K, that US students could get into, and would match into good residencies -- if all that was true, you would expect lots of people to do it. They don't. You should not go to any international school. I know you say that you "can't imagine doing anything else". Even with that, my best advice is to find something else. Continue your work in health IT. Or find something else.

 

[Medstart108]

Honestly, I don't know why you still want to do it because its just not worth it.

 

[YCAGA]

In January I was dismissed from a US DO school since I failed a course during academic probation - aka failed a course while repeating a year. I have since taken a job at a health IT company and after working w/ providers, I really want to give another shot at medical school. I know the chances of a residency are slim, but there is nothing else I want to do with my life. I have been looking at some international schools, and I stumbled across Italian schools that cost roughly $5k/yr. I really would like some input into what international schools are cost-effective.

My gpa is low since I heavily utilized the now defunct DO grade replacement program - think maybe in the low 2.0s.

Practicing in Europe could be an option since it would essentially be a clean slate (you are blacklisted at pretty much any U.S. medical school as you probably know) but 1) you would need learn the local language to an extremely high level (at least CEFR C1) 2) take a large pay cut, which should not be a problem if this is truly the only thing you can imagine doing 3) most importantly, why do you think you can succeed this time around? You already failed M1 twice. That is blunt but it's something to really think about. EU medical schools in English are not easier than U.S. ones, at least not to an amount that will matter in terms of passing or not.

Finally, no Italian medical schools are approved for U.S. Federal Loans or U.S. private loans. The cost of attendance is about $25,000/year or $125,000 for the entire degree. You need to show proof of funds to get most student visas in Europe. This should go without saying but working part-time in medical school is not an option, especially in your situation. The countries that offer student loans for medical schools in Europe are Poland, Ireland, and Czech Republic. You won't be paying off these loans on a European salary so you will either need to default on the loans and never come back to the U.S. (passport will be revoked probably so make sure you're an EU citizen by then) OR you can do IBR/PAYE/REPAYE on government loans and get most of the loans forgiven after 25 years of very low payments.

TL;DR: Don't go to Europe for medical school if you don't plan on practicing somewhere in the EU. You need to be okay with spending 6 years in medical school and be okay with taking 1-2 years off to learn a language if you want to practice in a country that you don't go to medical school in.

Best of luck to you. Let me know if you have any questions.