Is there any truth to this about the Caribbeans...

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Members don't see this ad.
But they are still technically doctors (DPM) and the Des Monies Pod school takes the same classes with the DO school students. They are clinically "Doctors". They prescribe medication, do surgery, take out student loans- they are essentially orthopedic surgeons that specialized in the feet.
Click to expand...

You're kidding about a POD being essentially an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in feet! Right??
 
iniquus said:
But your list would never look like that.
Click to expand...
In a combined match, why not? Not all ACGME programs are de facto better than all AOA programs. What if I'm looking at a specialty and also apply to a backup specialty? Even in the "all ACGME>>All AOA" world, what if I apply to both a specialty and a backup specialty? My ideal rank list would then be ACGME specialty ->AOA specialty -> ACGME backup -> AOA backup. However if I end up matching into my AOA backup (since that match occurs first), then I won't know if I would have matched ACGME, but if I forgo the AOA match for the backup, specialty, I could be at a much higher risk of not matching to anything.
 
SouthernSurgeon said:
Medical school and residency require extremely hard work to succeed. If you can't muster that degree of effort now, what makes you think you'll be able to magically flip a switch and produce such effort later?
Click to expand...
Those who have worked full time through their undergrad to support a home for the family might caused grades or GPA to drop, when situation get better or when one gets a loan GPA may go and stay in an upward trend. Not everyone can be generalized by GPA alone, everyone is different and undergo different situations. In a cliché sense:
uploadfromtaptalk1425486174192.jpeg
 
Mr Doc Turr said:
So that's 67 percent match for SGU and 55 for Ross. Based on this data, these schools are not nearly as bad as you guys are making them seem. (of course, these people may be reapplicants to the match)
Click to expand...
Dude, that's ****ing awful stats. Do you know how in debt you will be if you don't match? Apparently you don't understand exactly how much effort and time it will take to get through medical school, either. To be 300,000k in debt, waste 4 years of your prime cramming books, and then have a 50% shot at matching (and we are taking about matching at programs that are the worst of the worst). That is awful.

It sounds like you are convincing yourself the carribean is a good idea. Look, it's not. And if you couldn't make the grades in undergrad you also certainly won't make the grades at a carribean school that you would need to beast step 1.
 
Last edited:
Mr Doc Turr said:
So that's 67 percent match for SGU and 55 for Ross. Based on this data, these schools are not nearly as bad as you guys are making them seem. (of course, these people may be reapplicants to the match)
Click to expand...
67% of the people that complete school match somewhere, but likely not in their preferred specialty. That's pretty terrible, considering that Ross has insane levels of attrition, and SGU has a high level of attrition and a much higher level of students requiring 5-6 years to complete school. Compare that to 99% of DOs and MDs obtaining GME positions, with minimal attrition on both sides.
 
I kind of wish that during SGU or Ross's white coat ceremonies, the speaker would say something like "Look to your left. Now look to your right. Statistically, one of those two people you see will be gone in 18 months. Good luck!"

But that would be terrible marketing.
 
SGU is a safer bet than like 90% of law schools lol. I honestly don't even think that's much of an exaggeration if you look over attrition rates combined with employment rates after graduation. Plus law school is also inexplicably expensive.
 
Shams al Deen said:
SGU is a safer bet than like 90% of law schools lol. I honestly don't even think that's much of an exaggeration if you look over attrition rates combined with employment rates after graduation. Plus law school is also inexplicably expensive.
Click to expand...
But there are (theoretically) other career options that can (theoretically) make use of a law degree.
 
caffeinemia said:
No one is advising going to podunk law school either. SGU grads face the same problems as bad law school grads -- a glut of more qualified/desirable candidates outgunning them for a limited number of positions.
Click to expand...
Thing is, I'm not even talking about bad law schools. A lot of the top law 30 schools have like 30% unemployment after 9 months. Just putting in perspective the fact that a lot of career paths are not nearly as safe as going to a U.S. MD school, yet many people are willing to take the risk.
 
Shams al Deen said:
Thing is, I'm not even talking about bad law schools. A lot of the top law 30 schools have like 30% unemployment after 9 months. Just putting in perspective the fact that a lot of career paths are not nearly as safe as going to a U.S. MD school, yet many people are willing to take the risk.
Click to expand...
Yes, but it doesn't justify doing so. If someone goes to an Ivy league, takes out 200k in loans, majors in French Literature, and ends up working at Starbucks, I don't think it'll make them feel better knowing that the barista next to them has a law degree.
 
Shams al Deen said:
SGU is a safer bet than like 90% of law schools lol. I honestly don't even think that's much of an exaggeration if you look over attrition rates combined with employment rates after graduation. Plus law school is also inexplicably expensive.
Click to expand...

The difference is if you don't get a residency after med school the MD doesn't do much. The JD doesn't require a residency and your a lawyer after graduation. Not true for medical school.
 
DoctorSynthesis said:
The difference is if you don't get a residency after med school the MD doesn't do much. The JD doesn't require a residency and your a lawyer after graduation. Not true for medical school.
Click to expand...

Almost. You are a lawyer once you pass the bar exam and are admitted. But I think your point is you can sit for the bar after completing your education. But you aren't eligible to apply for a U.S. medical license after a couple of years of residency if you are coming from offshore. As for job prospects, they aren't amazing in law, although the inability to ever find something law related is grossly exaggerated on here. But you can always hang up a shingle and eek out a living as a lawyer drafting wills and creating corporations if you so desire. In medicine if you don't get a residency you can NEVER work as a doctor. So it's a bit apples and oranges.
 
Law2Doc said:
Almost. You are a lawyer once you pas the bar exam and are admitted. But I think your point is you can sit for the bar after completing your education. But you aren't eligible to apply for a U.S. medical license after a couple of years of residency if you are coming from offshore. As for job prospects, they aren't amazing in law, although the inability to ever find something law related is grossly exaggerated on here. But you can always hang up a shingle and eek out a living as a lawyer drafting wills and creating corporations if you so desire. In medicine if you don't get a residency you can NEVER work as a doctor. So it's a bit apples and oranges.
Click to expand...
You could always do a DNP in your spare time on the weekends online and then go out and do the whole doctoring thing. It ain't so bleak. 😛
 
SouthernSurgeon said:
Couldn't even make it through the title page, I guess?
Click to expand...
You posted a picture with no date on it. If I could find where you got this from, I surely wouldn't have asked you, sir.

Thank you for gyngyn for responding. I guess its true what they say about surgeons, right lol?
 
SouthernSurgeon said:
I also posted a link, which is nicely quoted in your post so you don't even have to click back a page. It contains over 200 pages of data. That's the source of the picture. Page 22 - a poster here annotated it for clarity. If I were considering the caribbean, I'd read all the available data from official sources, and not just rely on a picture some random stranger posted on the internet. But that's just me I guess.
Click to expand...
Didn't see that, sorry. I hope you'll accept my apology.
 
SouthernSurgeon said:
Page 22 - a poster here annotated it for clarity. If I were considering the caribbean, I'd read all the available data from official sources, and not just rely on a picture some random stranger posted on the internet. But that's just me I guess.
Click to expand...
As the random stranger who originally annotated the picture in question, I would definitely not rely on it. It is based only on my Google-fu, an art at which I am proficient but not yet a master.
 
breakintheroof said:
As the random stranger who originally annotated the picture in question, I would definitely not rely on it. It is based only on my Google-fu, an art at which I am proficient but not yet a master.
Click to expand...
It is the methodology recommended by the NRMP to identify outcomes for schools of interest, though.
 
GypsyHummus said:
Addressing each point:

1) Podiatrists doctors of the feet. Going along that same sense, wouldn't a doctor of the hands be a physician as well? What about of the ears? I was under the assumption that any medical specialty was by definition, a physician.
Click to expand...

Do you actually think that podiatrists and physicians have the same job and learn "the same things"? If you do, that's all right. But you should know that doctors of the hands, like all other MDs and DOs, have licenses that do not restrict them to only practicing medicine on one part of the body; they could feasibly go do another residency and try another body part (or the whole body!). Podiatrists are forever limited to the lower extremity.

2) Okay, so where is the cut off GPA and MCAT wise where it would not be wise to admit someone into a program? There are people who get into medical school with a 3.2.....people who get into schools with 24 MCAT. A select few get in with a combo of both (although this is rare). When is it time to throw in the towel?
Click to expand...

It is time to throw in the towel if your GPA and MCAT scores are strongly predictive of a lack of success in getting into and succeeding in medical school AND you do not wish to improve them. Again, this is what your friend did.

3) Wouldn't it be just 3 years of extra training, minus a few classes in the preclinical years? I never said that the education was equivalent, just similar in the first couple years.
Click to expand...

No. You would have to enter medical school anew and do all four years followed by an ACGME or AOA approved residency of 3 or more years. You can not just skip half of medical school if you went to podiatry school first.
 
Last edited:
Rainbow Zebra said:
one was 3 years ago, and one finally got a residency last year. They were brother/sister, both did St. Georges.
Their dad is my uncle, and he regrets sending them to SGU. They did not do well on the boards either.
Click to expand...

They are both doctors. What is their to regret? The boards score is not the schools fault!
 
a1medicine said:
Those who have worked full time through their undergrad to support a home for the family might caused grades or GPA to drop, when situation get better or when one gets a loan GPA may go and stay in an upward trend. Not everyone can be generalized by GPA alone, everyone is different and undergo different situations. In a cliché sense:
Click to expand...
You really think things will get better when you hit med school and the amount of work required skyrockets compared to undergrad? It isn't like that person's family will just take care of themselves when you suddenly you need many more hours per day to study. And it sure isn't going to get better in clinical years, and especially residency when you are so overworked that you won't have the time or energy to really take care of your family/other aspects of life.

I'm not saying people don't have valid reasons for why their gpa's are slightly lower than others, but imagining that things would get better in med school and residency seems really wishful unless something in their personal life is changing too.
 
boxer0011 said:
They are both doctors. What is their to regret? The boards score is not the schools fault!
Click to expand...
Are you serious? These schools have generally poor averages EVEN THOUGH they make their students take pre-tests and kick them out of their programs if they aren't scoring high enough. Med schools are supposed to teach you the information necessary to be a good physician as well as to help you be successful on board exams. If the vast majority of their students aren't doing well, it is clearly a fault of the program, and if you read anywhere on here or in other places from students who have gone to those schools, you would get a sense of how pathetically they are taught.
 
SouthernSurgeon said:
But saying that people in other fields make bad decisions, so this decision isn't that bad is horrible logic.
Click to expand...
Yeah I never jumped to that conclusion, just pointing out that the U.S. MD route (not SGU) might actually be the anomaly when we're talking about employment prospects and minimal risk. I would nevvvvver go to the carribs. But I have friends that've gone and are successful, so I'm more open to the carribs than a lot of people on here.
 
tantacles said:
No. You would have to enter medical school anew and do all four years followed by an ACGME or AOA approved residency of 3 or more years. You can not just skip half of medical school if you went to podiatry school first.
Click to expand...

There is a dual degree program offered by NOVA for DPM/DO where you don't have to repeat year one.
 
My primary issue with people who go to the Carribbean are those who would rather take their chances there than even consider going to a DO school and people who apply to a few top programs, get rejected, and then jump to the carribbean just because they don't want to wait another year. I would strongly advise against both approaches.
 
GypsyHummus said:
There is a dual degree program offered by NOVA for DPM/DO where you don't have to repeat year one.
Click to expand...

That doesn't refute the point. If you get a DPM then go to medical school you are going to enter the same level as everyone else and go through 4 years of school and take all the classes.

Using a dual degree argument is pretty dangerous here. Getting an MPH before medical school doesn't allow me to skip out on classes or anything even though there are 4 year MD/MPH programs.
 
No. For every DO spot an MD takes, there is another MD to take the spot that opens up. Bwahaha. There are too many MDs and DOs if you ask me 😛. And pre-emptive bwahah to @Goro
 
DoctorofDelight said:
Wat
Click to expand...
I think the point that he/she was making is that this might actually hurt DO's in regards towards matching towards their desired residencies since the people this would probably help most are the unmatched US MD's who usually have to use SOAP.
 
DoctorofDelight said:
Holy crap does that mean everyone is screwed except for USMDs? There are only around 2000 AOA residencies IIRC.
Click to expand...

We will have to see. I highly doubt a USMD with a weak application is going to beat a DO with a strong application and it remains to be seen how the spots will distribute themselves following the merger. There just isn't enough data to say anything meaningful. My (uneducated) guess? USMDs win out but DOs will have more opportunities than they had before.
 
SouthernSurgeon said:
http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Main-Match-Results-and-Data-2014.pdf

I wouldn't make it all sound like doom and gloom:

The PGY-1 match rate for U.S. seniors was 94.4 percent, up from 93.7 percent in 2013 but lower than the 2012 all-time high of 95.1 percent

In 2014, the ratio of PGY-1 positions per active U.S. senior was 1.54, the highest since 1976 and higher than the overall average of 1.40 between 1976 and 2014.
Click to expand...
Oh, I agree. It's not doom and gloom; the percentage is great. I was just stating the raw number in response to the posed question. But it is somewhat of a hefty chunk when you compare it to the 2,738 graduated D.O.'s from 2014.
 
Almost a thousand unmatched?! What happened?
 
SouthernSurgeon said:
That's a fairly consistent number
Click to expand...
Apparently so. I had no idea the unmatched rate was as high as 5-6%. I hope it's because these people failed their boards once or twice and not because of something outside of their control.
 
Lucca said:
We will have to see. I highly doubt a USMD with a weak application is going to beat a DO with a strong application and it remains to be seen how the spots will distribute themselves following the merger. There just isn't enough data to say anything meaningful. My (uneducated) guess? USMDs win out but DOs will have more opportunities than they had before.
Click to expand...

The choice competitive specialties will get scooped up by allo grads coming up short for derm, ortho, plastics, etc initially. I don't think the allo people falling to soap after applying for noncompetitive things are going to displace better stat DOs though. In a few years, things will be more integrated.
 
NYCdude said:
Apparently so. I had no idea the unmatched rate was as high as 5-6%. I hope it's because these people failed their boards once or twice and not because of something outside of their control.
Click to expand...

No. It's mostly people who aim high or not to enough places or have geographic limitations. Most of these people find something in soap.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

E
What day is AMCAS on for verification? Is there a way to check this?
Replies
7
Views
2K
maybefuturedoctor7
M
K
Is there any value to MMI?
Replies
7
Views
2K
blameitonbaby
blameitonbaby
frejfwierbgrewog
Are there significantly more applicants this cycle?
Replies
10
Views
1K
PickaGodnPray
PickaGodnPray
D
Another: Is this clinical experience? question about clinical research
Replies
1
Views
665
LizzyM
LizzyM
C
Is it disingenuous to talk about research opportunities for the "Why Us" section if I don't have any research experience?
Replies
10
Views
973
catalyst1000
C
Top