Non-EU resident doing EU training

[rgerwin]

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If I'm from the US, but go to med school in, let's say, Ireland, am I then still considered an overseas student?

 

[Miklos]

I'm not sure that I understand your question.

If you complete med school within the EU, then you should have the theorectical possibility of doing postgraduate training within the EU following graduation provided that:

1) You have the appropriate language skills for the country in question.
2) You have the possibility of getting a work permit, either through EU nationality (a matter of filling out forms in most cases) or applying for it (much more difficult) in the country for which you wish to train.
3) You are awarded the position, as you need to compete against local graduates.

Hope that helps.

Miklos

 

[tullia753]

If you an American citizen and want to do residency and practice in Europe you need EU-citizenship as far as I know.
You should explore how long you have to be in which country in order to be eligible for citizenship.
I am from Europe myself and I would advise you strongly to make up your mind first of all where you want to go!
then you should investigate the citizenship issues.
There are medical schools in Europe where you do not even need to apply but you just register and that's it.
but go back to
Step 1: where would you like to go to school and why?
I would be happy to advise you further

 

[tlew12778]

That is not true that you must be an EU citizen to go to med school and do your residency here. There are plenty of non-EU citizens that are going to med school in Italy and who plan to do their residency here. As long as your degree is accredited (which it will be so long as it is from an EU school), you are permitted by EU law to do your residency in Europe.

That said, can you imagine what it would be like if the EU did not allow Americans to do their residency in Europe, while America certainly allows (and relies) on FMGs for the US?

 

[deleted21609]

Legally, all jobs in the EU must be offered to any EU citizen before they can be filled by a non-citizen. In Ireland, that will give the worst student in your class the job ahead of the top student if the top student is foreign. In Britain, you can't get an intern job even if there is no citizen applying because they won't give you a work permit. You could get an SHO job, but only after doing an internship somewhere else.

 

[BellKicker]

Originally posted by tullia753
If you an American citizen and want to do residency and practice in Europe you need EU-citizenship as far as I know.
You should explore how long you have to be in which country in order to be eligible for citizenship.

I don't really know much about how hard it would be to move and practice here but statements like the above are absolutely insane. My wife is American; with her "green card" she has all the same rights as citizens. She can even vote for local and EU elections (but not for national elections, which is kinda weird).

Also, there are many IMGs here so I'd guess it's far from impossible to relocate here.

The biggest - BY FAR - obstacle would likely be the language unless you're moving to GB/Ireland.

 

[deleted21609]

There are many IMG's, but they didn't start at the intern level. Foreign doctors with more advanced training can get jobs, but the poster was talking about going to med school in the EU and staying on immediately afterward (as I understood him).

You can't stay on in Ireland because there are more than enough EU citizen grads to fill the intern jobs. You can't go to the UK because they won't hire you without the PLAB which is an SHO exam (ie. too advanced for pre-internship medical grads). That's simply the truth. The misinformation provided on these sites is insane. If you think I'm wrong then write to your local Health Board to see how many interns they hire per year then compare that to the number of EU citizen graduates there are in that Health Board. Also, ask some of the IMGs in your hospital how much post-graduate training they had received before immigrating.

 

[sluequee]

Hi,

I've sat back for a while not saying anything... but it's strikes me as a bit strange at how adamant you are that it is impossible for a Non-EU student to do an internship in Ireland. I know this to be untrue for a FACT. I personally know several students who are Non-EU students currently doing their internships in Ireland as we speak. Granted, it's not a given that you can remain in Ireland after you graduate, but it's not impossible.

I think it's unfair of you to try make these false claims when others look to this board for advice and help. I would guess more than a few people have been turned off of Ireland because of your claims and I find that a bit sad.

 

[13538]

Here are the FACTS for Ireland:

The numbers of non-EU nationals employed as NCHDs (non-consultant hospital doctors -ie- junior doctors) in Ireland as of October 2002 are as follows:

29% of all Interns
57% of all House Officers
72% of all Registrars
23% of all Sen/Sp. Registrars

(Source: Postgraduate Medical and Dental Board. http://www.pgmdb.ie/nchd/nchd3.tmpl)

Appropriate interpretation of this data is important... The non-EU intern cohort are likely to be all Irish medical school graduates but as student.ie pointed out many non-EU doctors come to Ireland with previous training and enter the system as registrars.

Generally speaking, the non-EU graduates of Irish medical schools that choose to stay in Ireland for internship usually manage to secure a post. However, it may not necessarily be in one of the larger urban university teaching hospitals. Non-EU Irish graduates invariably find it difficult (if not impossible) to get on to either a medical or surgical training scheme in Ireland after their intern year here...

 

[deleted21609]

I know foreign interns, SHOs, and reg's working now too, but how many foreign docs do you know who are going to get an intern job this year? I'm talking about the present. A handful of people may get left-over intern jobs, but it's less and less likely every year. For a student thinking of starting school here or who's already here, they should be aware of the fact that staying on is unlikely to be an option.

Trinners made another point for me. 72% of all Registrars, 23% of Sp Reg's, and surely even lower for Consultants. Shows how fair advancement practices are, the foreigners are welcome to work in the long hours-low pay reg jobs while locked out of Consultant jobs.

We can all wait a few months and see what happens to the foreign graduates of our schools this year. You can also talk to some foreign reg's and see how fairly they're being treated. I have, have you?

 

[leorl]

This seems to be a bit of a sore point for you. I don't think any system is "fair." I haven't done the research, but is any European or UK system fair towards the proportion of acceptances for non-EU students? Or what about the US and Canada? It's "easy" for non-US doctors to get an internship job (or even US IMGs), but look at the specialities they're getting into...definitely not the most competitive ones. Or Canada - if you're an IMG, it's virtually impossible to work in Canada. Or, how fair is it that say...Irish docs go over the US for a couple years just so they can come back to the Irish hospitals for consultant jobs? There's no fairness when it comes to this stuff, so I don't think it should be an issue, just need to get on with it and apply reality to your own aspirations.

 

[deleted21609]

True, nothing is fair. You can see foreigners at the highest levels of US medicine though and they are shockingly absent in Ireland given their numbers in the lower level jobs. The point is, if you plan to stay there, plan to be a lap dog for the rest of your career.

 

[leorl]

Sadly, I'm only capable in dead languages :[

 

[FionaS]

Sadly, I'm only capable in dead languages :[

Latin? Or ancient Greek? My Latin wasn't so dusty 6 years ago (6 years! Can't be that long since I studied Latin!) but I should think that if it isn't medical, it's not in my brain anymore...

Getting a job as a houseofficer (=intern) in the UK as a overseas grad (ie one who didn't do med school in the UK) is difficult, but not impossible. Getting in at SHO level is much easier (make sure you get on a training rotation though). Getting a job as a HO as an overseas student who studied med school in the UK is easy - you're on exactly the same playing field as all the UK students.

Now, must go back and practice my French. South of France here I come!

 

[leorl]

Oh,doing a French abroad year are you? cool! I wanna learn French 🙂. Both Latin and ancient Greek, although I have to admit I'd be much more capable in Latin. I've forgotten a lot of the Attic Greek vocab...and thus a lot of the grammar.

How is getting an SHO easier than getting a regular HO position?

 

[deleted21609]

"Getting a job as a HO as an overseas student who studied med school in the UK is easy - you're on exactly the same playing field as all the UK students"

We aren't students in the UK though. We're students in Ireland, so the rules are different.

 

[FionaS]

"Getting a job as a HO as an overseas student who studied med school in the UK is easy - you're on exactly the same playing field as all the UK students"

We aren't students in the UK though. We're students in Ireland, so the rules are different.

That would be true - but someone did mention the UK further up, so I answered 😉

Leorl - I wish I was doing a French abroad year - but organising it with my med school would be an absolute nightmare, and when I looked at it there were so many obstacles that my heart just sank... But I do have 3 weeks holiday (3 whole weeks!) coming up in June, so I could at least get some French practice in, and I'll just have to wait until I'm in doctor training for actually working in France.

Getting an SHO position is easier because there are more of them, basically. The number of HO juobs is tailored to the number of med students graduating each year, so even going out of region (ie away from where you graduated) is hard for your HO year. But after that, you have your full registration and can move around much more easily etc. Coming from elsewhere fits well here, because you have full registration from whereever you graduated, but you haven't commited yourself to a specialty so you don't have to repeat a bunch of training.

Mind you, they're now bringing in Foundation years (F1 and F2 instead of HO and SHO1), so who knows what will happen? 😕

 

[FionaS]

If I'm from the US, but go to med school in, let's say, Ireland, am I then still considered an overseas student?

Forgot to say, don't know about Ireland, but in the UK, the answer is "Yes".

To not be an overseas student, you have to have lived in the UK for greater than 3 years for purposes other than education...