Not sure if this is the best place to ask but caribbean IMG and general surgery

[Suture15]

Apologies if wrong forum. Sorta new here. Anyways, I was wondering what kind of outlook a person with low 240s step 1 from a caribbean school has for general surgery. I've looked through the Charting outcomes document for GS from last year and in terms of statistics I'm ok but always helps to hear some advice from people already in residency.

I know a lot of other factors play into it - Step 2, LORs and electives but just wondering what kind of things I should be looking at and be proactive about.

Thanks for any and all help!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Dr.LeoSpaceman]

The biggest thing is going to be to apply broadly. Unless you have incredible research and letters (from well-known people) saying you're the second coming of Surgical Jesus, you will probably be out of contention at any of the places that get mentioned in "Top 20" discussions. So you need to apply to essentially any place you can see yourself ending up.

 

[Suture15]

The biggest thing is going to be to apply broadly. Unless you have incredible research and letters (from well-known people) saying you're the second coming of Surgical Jesus, you will probably be out of contention at any of the places that get mentioned in "Top 20" discussions. So you need to apply to essentially any place you can see yourself ending up.

Thank you sir. Score wise though, am I atleast eligible for most? At this point that worries me. Was aiming for 250 but oh well can't change the past.

Haha surgical jesus that's a good one.

 

[Dr.LeoSpaceman]

If by eligible you mean that your Step I score wouldn't get your application tossed in the screening process for interviews, then yes, it would most likely you in the mix...if you were a US grad. As for what cutoffs people may look at for Carribean IMGs, I honestly can't say. But my gut is that it's probably higher (if they even consider Carribean IMGs in the first place). The other advice would be to talk to people have graduated from your program and matched into surgery, or find other Caribbean grads from similar schools and figure out if there are programs that are friendly to Caribbean applicants.