Is international medicine program difficult to get ?

[MaySi]

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I found this subforum has been dead for a long time.
Can anybody share your experience in applying global health residency programs?
I am an old FMG with 11 years after graduation. but has 1 yr experience with medicins sans frontiers , PhD in biomedical research w 4 peer reviewed papers, 3yrs teaching experience. but all these experience are outside USA.
step 1-- 203
step2ck --214
visa status- no need

I am at the edge of my life now. I must get residency next yr.

Do u think it is feasible to apply GH with this score?

Welcome any inputs!!!

 

[smq123]

I found this subforum has been dead for a long time.
Can anybody share your experience in applying global health residency programs?
I am an old FMG with 11 years after graduation. but has 1 yr experience with medicins sans frontiers , PhD in biomedical research w 4 peer reviewed papers, 3yrs teaching experience. but all these experience are outside USA.
step 1-- 203
step2ck --214
visa status- no need

I am at the edge of my life now. I must get residency next yr.

Do u think it is feasible to apply GH with this score?

Welcome any inputs!!!

As far as I am aware, there is no such thing as a "global health" specialty.

There are preventative medicine residencies, though. They are not hard to get at all.

 

[MaySi]

As far as I am aware, there is no such thing as a "global health" specialty.

There are preventative medicine residencies, though. They are not hard to get at all.

thanx for ur comment. isn't that international health= global health?

 

[smq123]

thanx for ur comment. isn't that international health= global health?

There is no "international health" specialty, either.

 

[wholeheartedly]

I think what smq is trying to say is that there aren't any accredited residency programs in "global health" or "international health" at least not in the US, although after you finish a residency program in things like family med, emergency med, pediatrics, internal med, and maybe some others , there are opportunities to do global health fellowships that generally include some experience abroad.

Generally MSF requires you to be a fully trained physician to work with them, so what is your background as far as training goes?

 

[MaySi]

I think what smq is trying to say is that there aren't any accredited residency programs in "global health" or "international health" at least not in the US, although after you finish a residency program in things like family med, emergency med, pediatrics, internal med, and maybe some others , there are opportunities to do global health fellowships that generally include some experience abroad.

Generally MSF requires you to be a fully trained physician to work with them, so what is your background as far as training goes?

I see what you mean. In some FM residency programs , it was described as FM program hospitalist track, FM program rural track, FM program international track. not fellow programs. they r residency programs. Correct me if I am wrong. Or r these programs new these yrs?

 

[wholeheartedly]

I see what you mean. In some FM residency programs , it was described as FM program hospitalist track, FM program rural track, FM program international track. not fellow programs. they r residency programs. Correct me if I am wrong. Or r these programs new these yrs?

Ah yeah, I see what you mean. quite a few programs in the specialties i mentioned above do have global health tracks. At a few places you might apply for a specific track when doing residency applications, but it seems like a lot of programs you just apply to the main residency program (FM, EM, IM, peds) and after you match you can decide you want to track into something like that. One of the local IM programs I'm familiar with has you match to IM, then once you match there they send out applications to the global health track and take 2 people each year. Those two people are req to take certain courses and electives and then they get priority for doing rotations abroad in the last year. However anyone can take the global health courses and do an elective abroad, it's just the track students get priority for scheduling those 2 months abroad.

So whether or not you're competitive for those programs is going to depend on whether or not you're competitive for the specialty itself and then if there are global health tracks to apply for you need to demonstrate experience with global health or a strong desire to work in global Heath, which given your experience with MSF, I don't think you'll have a problem with.

That's about all I can say at this point though, as I haven't started medical school yet. I don't know about scores for FMGs, difficulties you might have getting a residency since you've been out of training for awhile, and that stuff. I just know a little about global health options since that's the direction I'd like to go and am currently working on an MPH in epi with a global health concentration.

Good luck, sounds like you're passionate about it and have had some broad experiences. If you know what specialty you're interested in, like FM, hopefully someone can chime in about your competitiveness.

 

[MaySi]

Ah yeah, I see what you mean. quite a few programs in the specialties i mentioned above do have global health tracks. At a few places you might apply for a specific track when doing residency applications, but it seems like a lot of programs you just apply to the main residency program (FM, EM, IM, peds) and after you match you can decide you want to track into something like that. One of the local IM programs I'm familiar with has you match to IM, then once you match there they send out applications to the global health track and take 2 people each year. Those two people are req to take certain courses and electives and then they get priority for doing rotations abroad in the last year. However anyone can take the global health courses and do an elective abroad, it's just the track students get priority for scheduling those 2 months abroad.

So whether or not you're competitive for those programs is going to depend on whether or not you're competitive for the specialty itself and then if there are global health tracks to apply for you need to demonstrate experience with global health or a strong desire to work in global Heath, which given your experience with MSF, I don't think you'll have a problem with.

That's about all I can say at this point though, as I haven't started medical school yet. I don't know about scores for FMGs, difficulties you might have getting a residency since you've been out of training for awhile, and that stuff. I just know a little about global health options since that's the direction I'd like to go and am currently working on an MPH in epi with a global health concentration.

Good luck, sounds like you're passionate about it and have had some broad experiences. If you know what specialty you're interested in, like FM, hopefully someone can chime in about your competitiveness.

thanx for your comments. I got your points. Do u mean IM residents can later choose this global health track? I thought it is solely through FM programs. I am interested in GH that is affiliated w biomed research rather than GH that is affiliated w epi solely . good to know that there is someone in this forum who is interested in GH.

 

[wholeheartedly]

I've seen global health tracks available within IM, EM, FM, Peds, and even some ObGyn residencies (might be others as well) and global health fellowships available after those as well. Also there are options at my current institution for residents in any program to be funded for a month of global health work and people from programs ranging from peds to derm to plastics to Optho all have participated.

As far as research I think your options are going to be pretty varied and dependent on where you go and what the faculty members are into there.

I think your biggest issue is going to be figuring out if you can get a US residency spot having been out of training for awhile. I'm just not sure how that works.