I would tell you to forget doing residency here. Italians don't even get in their first year PG so they work for free as "volunteer doctors" in whatever hospital will take them in the hopes that one of these hospitals will try to make a space for them in their residency program. We have a friend who is in his THIRD year waiting to get into OB/Gyn in Milan. Another friend of ours (who graduated from Holland so her degree was actually recognised) waited TWO years before getting into Peds here.
Mind you, the pay is far inferior to what you would get in the US as well. Residents make EUR 1800 per month PLUS have to pay university fees. Once upon a time you were allowed to moonlight, but they just changed that law too and you are no longer allowed to moonlight at any facility not associated with your hospital (unless you are covering a GP or working with the paramedics).
But if you still want to try, you will need to contact a university to see if they will allow you to take the licensing exam (esame di stato) at their hospital. It involves 3 months of rotations plus a written test. After you finish it, only then can you hope and pray that the Welfare Minister will schedule a Residency Placement Exam sometime soon. There is no regular schedule for the exam. One year they skipped it entirely. Then you hope and pray you make it into one of the prized spots (btw, your university thesis weighs into your score so if you did not do one in Italy, I do not know how they count it... the thesis must be written on the subject of your specialty of choice in order to count).
If you do make it in, then you hope and pray that you will be placed in a decent hospital where they actually teach you to be a doctor. Many do not. Also, depending on what specialty you are in, and what hospital you are at, you may or may not be rotated around to the other hospitals in the city. Theoretically, the law requires everyone to rotate every 6 months. This has become one a year for insurance purposes. But the reality is that amongst all of our friends, only one has regularly rotated (general surgery).
If you look back at the old posts about Italy (and I mean really old... like 2004-2005) there was a link to a group in Rome that explained how to go back and forth with residency recognition.
ETA: Here's the
link.
