J1 visa and August 1st Starts for Surgical fellowships

[jaundiced_hummingbird]

Any surgery residents on J1 visas facing the conundrum of an August 1st start for their surgical fellowships (like MIS/Bariatrics or Surgical Oncology)? Any word from ECFMG about your status in the intervening period (meaning July1 to July 31st)? Also, does the DS2019 of J1 sponsorship start July 1st (August 1st) to June 30th or August 1st to July 31st especially for folks in their seventh year on the J1 visa? I'm just curious to know what the ECFMG is doing for this year as the following year I will be in my seventh year and applying for a one year fellowship.

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[Winged Scapula]

What did your visa attorney tell you?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[jaundiced_hummingbird]

Legal status is not a problem, as there is a 30 day grace on J1 from the end date listed on the DS2019 and even beyond that there are ways to maintain legal status. The main question is whether the ECFMG considers the seventh year in continuity meaning starting July 1 to June 30th or does a seventh year count as having started August 1st to July 31st. So I was wondering what this years DS2019s from ECFMG are looking like for surgical fellowship candidates.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Legal status is not a problem, as there is a 30 day grace on J1 from the end date listed on the DS2019 and even beyond that there are ways to maintain legal status. The main question is whether the ECFMG considers the seventh year in continuity meaning starting July 1 to June 30th or does a seventh year count as having started August 1st to July 31st. So I was wondering what this years DS2019s from ECFMG are looking like for surgical fellowship candidates.

Gotcha.

What does ECFMG as your sponsor say? My point is that you aren't going to find enough/any visa needing surgical fellows on SDN to answer your question.

 

[Sarr]

You will get an email this week.

Bottom line is; there will be a form for you to fill out for a 1 month coverage visa that ECFMG will sponsor you for. The one month gap will NOT be credited to the end of your training. So your visa will expire on june 30 2017 no matter what. if your educational requirements are not met until that date you will need to follow extension beyon 7 years protocols even for that 1 month. Meaning you will need a extra letter from your government stating exceptional need. The rest is on the ECFMG web site. Couple of my friends got their emails this friday.

 

[thedrjojo]

While I'm going to appreciate the built in month of vacation, I think this was a poorly thought out and conceived plan by abs or whomever. Unaccredited/boarded fellowships will be variably following this (transplant fellowships for example, so will be a mixture this year) and it seems like a major hassle for img's, but they are foreigners so really who cares /sarcasm

 

[ThoracicGuy]

While I'm going to appreciate the built in month of vacation, I think this was a poorly thought out and conceived plan by abs or whomever. Unaccredited/boarded fellowships will be variably following this (transplant fellowships for example, so will be a mixture this year) and it seems like a major hassle for img's, but they are foreigners so really who cares /sarcasm

I think the main answer to if this was the right thing to do or not will be to look the pass rates for the QE with having a month in between.

 

[thedrjojo]

I think the main answer to if this was the right thing to do or not will be to look the pass rates for the QE with having a month in between.

I guess. Still, not a great fix to an overwhelming complex issue

 

[ThoracicGuy]

I guess. Still, not a great fix to an overwhelming complex issue

What do you think would help?

 

[Winged Scapula]

I think the main answer to if this was the right thing to do or not will be to look the pass rates for the QE with having a month in between.

What do you wanna bet there's no change?

People will use the month to move, relax, etc. - same thing happened when work hours reduced, everyone thought scores would go up.

Perhaps the board needs to look at programs/the exam as to why the failure rate is so high (compared to other specialties) rather than blame it on the residents.

 

[thedrjojo]

What do you think would help?

Fixing the QE (make relevant questions maybe?), fixing the general surgery education program so that chiefs are prepared and not have to have a cram month, which like ws said is not gonna happen... Score in general kinda sucks, but with me using score as a primary source this year got me my best absite percentile...

 

[ThoracicGuy]

Fixing the QE (make relevant questions maybe?), fixing the general surgery education program so that chiefs are prepared and not have to have a cram month, which like ws said is not gonna happen... Score in general kinda sucks, but with me using score as a primary source this year got me my best absite percentile...

There is alot of esoteric stuff on the QE, that's true... Our education program was only so so. We had a weekly education conference after M&M, but it was only marginally useful. I wasn't around for SCORE, so I can't really comment much on that one.

 

[vhawk]

I think the main answer to if this was the right thing to do or not will be to look the pass rates for the QE with having a month in between.

Is there truly no "curving" aspect to the way that the QE is scored? How is this not just an "arms race" situation? Really it basically just changes a level playing field to one that punishes people who do fellowships that arent respecting the gap month.

 

[ThoracicGuy]

Is there truly no "curving" aspect to the way that the QE is scored? How is this not just an "arms race" situation? Really it basically just changes a level playing field to one that punishes people who do fellowships that arent respecting the gap month.

I'm not sure there is much of a curve or you'd likely have an exact percentage passing each year. Instead there is slight variations in the yearly percentages. As for the fellowships that don't do the gap month, I expect that will be a rather small percentage.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Fixing the QE (make relevant questions maybe?), fixing the general surgery education program so that chiefs are prepared and not have to have a cram month, which like ws said is not gonna happen... Score in general kinda sucks, but with me using score as a primary source this year got me my best absite percentile...

To what do you attribute that?

More time with the resource or the benefit outweighs the poorly thought out questions/wrong answers/no references, etc that plague SCORE?

 

[jaundiced_hummingbird]

You will get an email this week.

Bottom line is; there will be a form for you to fill out for a 1 month coverage visa that ECFMG will sponsor you for. The one month gap will NOT be credited to the end of your training. So your visa will expire on june 30 2017 no matter what. if your educational requirements are not met until that date you will need to follow extension beyon 7 years protocols even for that 1 month. Meaning you will need a extra letter from your government stating exceptional need. The rest is on the ECFMG web site. Couple of my friends got their emails this friday.

Thats interesting! You don't really need a visa sponsored for the 1 month gap as one remains in status. So essentially, ECFMGs interpretation of the 7 year clause in that it has to be in continuity. That puts a good number of folks in trouble.... Thanks all for your comments!

 

[thedrjojo]

To what do you attribute that?

More time with the resource or the benefit outweighs the poorly thought out questions/wrong answers/no references, etc that plague SCORE?

I hope I got smarter, and as I've been leading teams and such, improved. I also utilized a flash card system on my phone, which I think I attribute more than SCORE, but I also utilized the SCORE questions rather than pay for truelearn (which is what everyone else in my program uses, but i was one of 5 people out of the 50+ of us that take the absite to get above a 90%, so ), but I do think that at least using the score modules through out the year helped in some way