Internship in the United States as an international student

[HakunaMatt]

Hello everyone!

I am currently a second year attending a DO school as an international student. I sometimes worry about the difficulty in getting a residency as an international student who has done medical school in the US. Are there some specialities that are immediately ruled out for me due to my status as a F-1? Are there residency programs that will reject me just because this reason alone? what regulations am i restricted to? I am not an IMG, but at the same time, I am an international student. Any help or advice?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Your F1 student Visa will be of no concern. You will need to switch to an H1B or J for residency.

Because you are a foreign national trained at a US school you're actually a much more attractive candidate (then you would be as in FMG/IMG ) and some programs may be willing to sponsor those visas for you. However some will not depending on the specialty.

What you can do is start to research what programs offer H1B visa's. As it gets closer to match season if there are programs you are interested in that do not appear to offer visas they may be more interested once they know you are a US student.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Agree with WS. Most programs will be happy to help manage your F visa. Of note, in your first year you will be in OPT status (which is an extension of your F visa). This makes it much easier for a program to get you an H visa, as there is an entire extra year to take care of the paperwork / wait times. You would always have the choice of getting a J.

The only programs that would be off the table are research tracks paid for with NIH grants. For most of those, you must be a US citizen to be funded off of grants. But these are rare, and you're not likely interested, and probably difficult to get into from a DO program.

My advice to you now is to touch base with your school's visa office and make sure that they understand, and are willing to process, your OPT request. If your school doesn't have many internationals, esp if you're the first, then you want to make sure this is an option for you upon graduation. It's easy for them so there's no reason this shouldn't work.