obtaining surgical residencies as Australian med graduate?

[astrokitty]

Hi all, I'm canadian citizen, looking at Aussie med school options these days. I was always interested in family medicine, and i still think i can be a happy physician practicing fam med. but i recently had a chance to observe some laparoscopic surgeries at a local hospital, and i enjoyed it so much that i started wondering what my options would be, in terms of becoming some sort of a surgeon if i went to an Australian med school.
i did some 'search' on SDN/premed101/valueMD regarding this topic, but most info seems pretty much outdated. and i really want to find out what it is like to obtain surgical residency from people who are in Aussieland studying, or from someone who has gone through this process already. so here are my questions.



1. obtaining Canadian residency
- i am well aware that this is very hard. i think i saw one of the carms pdf file indicating ~%26 match for IMGs. would these match be... mostly FM in unwanted areas??? So...lets say if i am 200% sure wanting to come back to canada.. then i should just focus on making connections in FM and try to do rotations in canada.. right?
- but what if I'm interested in some fairly competitive residency... like urology? If i want to come back to Canada and practice, now is that going to be near impossible? Has anyone done this as Aus med grad?
- i hear Irish grads are matching relatively well these days. how are Australian grads doing in CARMS?



2. obtaining American residency
- If i'm interested in urology, IM, anesthesia, radiology...(so far those are the ones i had limited experience from observing), what would my chance be as a CDN citizen & Australian med school graduate to secure residency in states, assuming average~above average in USMLE?
- After completing the American residency, would it be easier to go back to Canada if i wanted to? What if I want to go back to Australia? Is that possible?



3. obtaining Australian residency
- As an international, I assume securing surgical residency won't be easy in Australia as well. I guess it would also depend on the LORs and my own performance.. How are international med students doing (in general) in securing a surgical residency (or other competitive residencies)??? Is it even possible??



any input would be greatly appreciated!

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[Excanuk]

1. Canadian residency - going to get harder by the time you graduate. More students in the Canadian schools and the same spots. The good thing is that parallel spots have opened up meaning that there are seperate spots for IMGs. If you talk to some people it would seem as if Canadians who went overseas for medical school have higher match rates then IMGs but I'm not so convinced on the data. Also most of these spots have very restrictive return of service obligations. If you do FM it's not too bad 2 years of FM = 2 years of RoS. For anything else it's horrible. Canada has training as long as Australia (some cases even longer) so for most programs it's 3+ years which means anywhere from 3-7 years of return of service.

2. US is also getting harder. There was a recent cut in residency spots and H1Bs..as a Canadian citizen you are worse off in a way because you need an H1B or a J1, and to do a J1 you have to do a residency that's declared as in need by the Ministry of health. Plus you will have to write the MCCEE...oh yeah more places sponsor J1 then H1b. You can forget about Anesthesia or Radiology or Urology as a non US citizen but you may have a chance with IM. No it won't be easier to go back to Canada, unless you can make sure your residency is equivalent in length to a Canada one. That's the biggest downside to the short American residencies...because if the RCPSC deems it unacceptable you have to go and find a fellowship somewhere in the area you are missing. It's a huge pain and means you will take a huge pay cut...and then you still have to write your Canadian fellowship exam which is harder then the American one. At least some provinces will accept the USMLE in lieu of the MCCEE, QE1 and QE2...but not all.

3. Australian residency used to be easy to obtain. It's going to be more competitive in 4 years time. LORs only from Australian sources and as many electives in Australia as possible. I'm a surgical trainee at a major metro hospital in Sydney - it was a bit of work, but not as tough as I thought. Yes it's possible - lots of Malaysians I know are doing ENT/Gen Surg (which is pretty easy now)/Cardiothoracics. Of course they all have their PR now..but were international students at some stage.