Need advice (residency chances)

[pktutor2014]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I am an IMG student from a Caribbean medical school with US citizenship. Got done with my basic sciences Dec, 2013 and but due to family and personal issues, i have was unable to take my USMLE Step 1 on time. I had to take leave of absence from my medical school for the past 6 months. After a couple of months of dealing with family and personal issues, i was finally able to get on track and resume studies. I plan on taking my exam end of August 2014. In the mean time i had to transfer from my medical school to another Caribbean medical school. I have a couple of questions for the senior member of this forum. You advice would be much appreciated!!!!

1) How bad are my residency chances, if i took a long break to study for my USMLE Step 1 exam? I am sure it
won't look that good to the program directors but what if my STep 1 and step 2 scores are really good. What if i am also able to add some good research papers and posters to my resume?

3) How does it look to the residency programs when an IMG student transfers to another medical school?

 

[Law2Doc]

An offshore education, transfers between offshore schools and a delayed step 1 are all red flags. Nobody can really tell you what the impact is going to be, but you are already far enough down the road that at this point you may as well push on, put up good numbers and try to beat the odds.

 

[BoardingDoc]

I am an IMG student from a Caribbean medical school with US citizenship. Got done with my basic sciences Dec, 2013 and but due to family and personal issues, i have was unable to take my USMLE Step 1 on time. I had to take leave of absence from my medical school for the past 6 months. After a couple of months of dealing with family and personal issues, i was finally able to get on track and resume studies. I plan on taking my exam end of August 2014. In the mean time i had to transfer from my medical school to another Caribbean medical school. I have a couple of questions for the senior member of this forum. You advice would be much appreciated!!!!

1) How bad are my residency chances, if i took a long break to study for my USMLE Step 1 exam? I am sure it
won't look that good to the program directors but what if my STep 1 and step 2 scores are really good. What if i am also able to add some good research papers and posters to my resume?

3) How does it look to the residency programs when an IMG student transfers to another medical school?

As Law2Doc said, you have a ton of red flags. Do you know what field you want to go into? If you're looking to go FM, IM or Peds, I think it's possible for you to match provided that you apply very broadly. By very broadly, I mean that I would honestly consider applying to well over 100 programs. If you're looking to get into something more competitive, I would imagine that your chances are very very low. I'm in EM and I met very few IMGs on the interview trail and they all seemed like they had rockstar backgrounds.

 

[pktutor2014]

Thank you for the advice everyone. Really appreciate it!! BoardingDoc, i am looking to get into IM or FM. I am going to try to get good scores on my steps. Hopefully, that should be good enough to get me a decent residency somewhere..