Italian med schools?

[burlypie]

There have been a few threads on this subject, though they're pretty old, and I wanted to know if anyone else had considered Italy for med school or knew anything about it or knew anyone who had done it.

Does anyone know which are most likely to accept (Italian speaking) foreigners? What is the educational curriculum and clinical training like? How long it takes to get through if the US pre med requirements have been completed?

Thanks for any input!

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[Vitaliano333]

I can tell you how things were like up until 3 years ago (although I doubt that there have been any major changes since). First of all, each school has an entrance exam which falls on the same day for all schools (mid September), so you can only apply to one. The exam I took was based on Biology, Physics, Math and Chemistry and it was multiple choice. Most if not all schools allot a certain number of slots for foreign students, the number usually being proportionate to the total number of slots (roughly 10% of the total, at least where I took the entrance exam). Italian students go to med school right out of high school (no such thing as pre-med here). There is a six year curriculum plus you need to work on a thesis. Keep in mind that at all schools, most (if not all) the exams are oral. When I went through it, there were 55 different exams I had to sit for, but I here that the total number has declined since then. The curriculum is very comprehensive and to some extent repetitive. To be honest, the clinical training could be better and, if you're not an independent learner, you may come up lacking in that respect. In answer to your last question, I knew a student from Canada who had a degree in Physiology. He requested official validation of the exams he had already taken in Canada. This request was made to the specific school he had been accepted to. The whole process was very lengthy (took about a year, if I recall), although he ended up getting about 2.5 years knocked off the curriculum. But there are no general rules that I'm aware of and it all comes down to how the specific ruling committee decides. One last thing you should keep in mind: consider that six year figure to be very loose. In fact, even after factoring out the high drop-out rate, the average length of stay in med school is probably closer to 8 years. One reason is that tuition is so ridiculously low that people are almost expected to take there time.

I hope this helps.

 

[Vitaliano333]

One more thing. I recall one Canadian Student mentioning that he had gotton most of his info from the Italian consulate (things like which schools to consider and which to stay away from). So you might want to try them.

 

[JMD]

I have heard of a person from my undergrad who went to Italy for med school a while ago (maybe 15 yrs.) and is currently a neurosurgeon here in the US. Must have been alright over there to end up getting a neurosurg residency here...but sorry, that is all the info I have. If I run into the professor who told me this I will try to get some details.

 

[theodore]

Vitaliano said more or less everything.However, I d like to call your attention on a couple of more things.
First of all, when i took the entrance exams in Rome(5 years ago), there was also a"logic" session in the exam, which actually made up a big part of the questions.This means your Italian knowledge has to be very good to do that.
Second, a part of you grade is made up by your high school degree.
Suprisingly, all the Italians i saw there had a flawless score in high school(20/20). And i m saying suprisingly, because during the exam they were asking me for the answers in all the topics except for the language part. That s right, cheating was free during the exam!! Only problem was, the Italians wouldn t help any foreigners(logical, since we were fighting for a common number of places).
Third, there s an oral exam, passing which allowed you to enter automatically Biology or Pharmacology school, and if you wanted, to enter a written exam, to go for medical school. The oral exam was ridiculously easy.
Fourth, if you DO go to Italy, avoid by any means southern schools. There is an amazing degree of corruption there, Napoli being the golden standard.You may find easily a way to enter med school without studying, and other ways to finish it, without studying(actually, this way is called lirette, the national currency).
Overall, I would tell you to keep Italy as a secondary option. There are very good schools(hell, Milan has the reputation of being the very best in Europe), but in general things aren t good, especially for foreigners.When i had my oral exam, first thing the guy told me when he saw i was Greek was"what s wrong with you Greeks, you want to make a colony here?" Plus, in a big study i happened to read 4 years ago, Italian doctors had one of the biggest(if not the biggest) percentages in false diagnoses in Europe.
Hope this was helpful.
Later...