post-bac or MPH or masters...

[lms1712]

Hi everyone... I am international and graduated from an international uni... Applied last year to Sinai but got waitlisted until now (I have good academic and research records, a decent MCAT, volunteering and clinical experiences). I didn't apply to other schools mainly because I don't have any previous education in the US. But now when I think about it seriously, maybe I should consider doing some studies before reapplying?

The options are:

1. post-bac (but i have already taken all the premed requirements from my home uni)

2. an MPH program

3. special master's???

I am really hoping to finish a program in one year in order to apply before I am too old to enter med school and too old to do residency... fellowship... etc etc etc.... lol


Therefore, any suggestions on the programs you are aware of or precedent examples of international entering med schools would be highly appreciated.

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[dragonfly99]

This is a really interesting question. I don't know.
If you had a good enough application to get interviewed @Sinai then I don't think other graduate programs in the US would be hard to get into.

My understanding of SMP's is that they are for people who need to bring up their GPA's. It doesn't sound like that was your problem. Postbac is usually for people who majored in something like English who haven't taken all the required science prerequisites yet. That also doesn't sound like you.

MPH might be a decent fall-back plan as it's a degree that you could actually use to get a job if the med school plans fall through. Perhaps if you want to attend Sinai, you could look into MPH programs in New York City. The problem is I think most of them are 2 years, not 1 (I could be wrong, and perhaps could be done in 1 year plus 1 summer?). Also, I am afraid it would be expensive. I think that Columbia (in New York), U of North Carolina and U of Michigan are supposed to have great public health schools, but I'm sure there are a lot of others. If Mt Sinai has a public health school, perhaps getting in there could be a back door into their med school, but you have to be careful and not assume so without evidence.

If you can't get into a US med school but want to do residency here in the US, particularly New York, Israeli medical schools or Irish med school, or perhaps one of the Caribbean ones like St George U, might be an option. It's a little risky, but if you want to do something like internal medicine, psychiatry, family practice, I think it would be possible. The problems come in when people think they can do dermatology, plastic surgery, orthopedic surgery and radiology (hard to obtain residencies with few spots available and usually none for people who attended foreign med schools).

Also, if you want to look into US private med schools, I would look elsewhere outside of big cities like NYC and Boston - it may be slightly easier to get into places in the Midwest, etc. that aren't so popular, or even in smaller cities in the northeast (? Albany or Rochester NY, etc.).

 

[rbnsafsadgf]

I was under the impression that many medical schools require that some (1 or 2 years) of your undergrad coursework be completed in the US or Canada. Given that meeting that requirement would broaden the range of schools that you could apply to, why not take post-bac classes for a year? You could do it informally even.

There are many threads about MPH as (poor) med school prep around.