Just Matched Coming from a Top 3 Carib School after Doing a SMP and not Being Accepted to a US School; Current Carib Students - Keep Fighting!

[sg808]

Hello Everyone!

I found out yesterday I matched! A little about me: years ago I posted a thread about how I didn't perform well in a SMP. At the time the advice I was given was that my medical career was pretty much over and I should find an alternate career path. Turned out, I didn't do that and took a risk to attend a Top 3 Carib School. Worked hard and finally saw the rewards of my hard work yesterday when I received the email saying I matched.

For any current Carib Med students, continue to work hard and make it through! There is a light at the end of the tunnel! However, going to the Carib is a lot of hard work and hurdles you got to through that wouldn't have to deal with as a US Med Student. Thus, I DO NOT ENDORSE/RECOMMEND ANY CURRENT PREMEDS pursue this path and instead should try to do everything they can to get into a state school. That being said, by posting this I wanted to motivate current Carib Med students going through this process that the fight is not over till it's over and keep pushing!

Here's the thread I posted years ago about my SMP: SMP Did More Harm Than Good....Need Advice.

If anyone has any questions, I'm more than happy to answer and willing to share my experience on here if anyone finds that helpful.

Keep studying hard and fighting!

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[wolfvgang22]

Congratulations from another Saba alum! I'm glad to hear it is still possible with hard work. I read several of your posts and agree with them. I'm glad there are still helpful people that attend or attended Saba willing to help others, since I am several years in practice now and not as in touch anymore about the Caribbean options .

 

[Skip Intro]

I finished residency at a University-based anesthesiology residency program in 2009. I have been in private practice going on 12 years. I have been board-certified since 2010. Last year, my total compensation was $465K. I am a physician-owner in my private practice group. I currently sit on several hospital committees, including recently having been elected by my peers to serve on the hospital’s medical executive committee. I have an amazing work-life balance. Yes, I work hard when I’m here, but when walk out the door at the end of the day I put it all behind me and leave work at work.

No one asks where I went to medical school. No one cares.

I was told, before I went to Ross (when it was still on Dominica), that I would never succeed going this route. I read these nascent forums where self-described experts informed me that, in no uncertain terms, I would end up regretting my mistake and in massive amount of debt. Because, you know, that’s what they’d heard from other people who told them this was the truth. Yet, I persisted.

I continued to come to these forums after I matriculated and continued to be told by 20-year-old premeds that I was doomed. It was suggested that I wasn’t going to a real medical school. I was chided that I would never get into residency. I listened to other naysayers insisting that it would ultimately end poorly for me. I looked at their cherry-picked data. I pored through their faulty analyses. I endured their seemingly endless misrepresentations and misconceptions. I tried to offer valid counterpoints and temper my frustrations at their second-hand knowledge. I was actually living what they thought they could accurately detail from a distance. I persisted.

I recently finished paying-off my school debt. My current net worth is well into the seven-figure range.

That’s not to say that I haven’t made mistakes along the way. Some of those mistakes early on are what landed me at Ross. I’ve made mistakes since, as well. Still I persisted.

And, that’s the key.

There will be people all along the way who will delight in your setbacks. Their crocodile tears will stream down their faces as they bask in that fleeting warmth of schadenfreude continuing to dismiss your successes. “You’re the exception” and “most people fail” or “it’s not the same now” or whatever lazy and dismissive sideswipe they can throw at you to minimize what you’re becoming. Persist.

Fact: Many of my fellow graduating classmates run departments. They are researchers. They sit on hospital boards. They are clinical professors at, perish the thought, U.S. medical schools. They teach the same arrogant and hubristic medical students who would chastise them for their decisions. They persist.

Don’t ignore these people. Remember them. Someday they will understand that they had no authority to sit high on a perch and offer to “help” you. They actually want you to fail if you don’t do what they say. They want to hold a moral high ground that they haven’t yet earned.

I came out of SDN “retirement” to say this. Persist. Succeed. Nothing pisses the naysayers off more than that.

-Skip