a few additional points that I failed to mention on the last post.
1. If you attend medical schools that is not recognized by Taiwanese government, you must take a degree varification test in addition to Taiwan medical board to become a liscensed physician. The degree varification test will test your Mandarin, Taiwanese geography and history. This is a hard test, believe me you definitely do not want to take this. All US allopathic schools are recognized by Taiwan, but not sure about osteopathic school since I did not look into it.
2. Taiwan medical board is all mutiple choice with one best answer
3. There is an English version to the board. However, if you choose to take this version, you will be obligated to practice under Taiwan government in a rural area for two years.
4. The current pass rate is between 25 to 50%, and you can enter a residency without passing the board; thus, there are many PGY 2 whom graduated from Taiwan med school still trying to pass the exam. However, most people pass the board upon completion of their residency. For those who are unable to pass the board and still want to practice in Taiwan, they pretty much become residents for life. Believe me, there are quite a few doctors in Taiwan who is unable to get into Taiwan med school, end up attending Felipino med school and just unable to pass the board thus become life long residents that make very little money compared to fully liscensed physicians in Taiwan. If you want to practice in Taiwan, I strongly suggest you pass the board but you can still practice medicine without it (you will just have to be residents for the rest of your life)
5. Residents in Taiwan wear short white coat and gets paid about 70,000 NT per month.
6. It is pencil and paper exam that is offered 2 or 3 time a year (cannot recall the exact number of times offer per year)
7. Charts are written in English in most hospitals, so you can pretty much get your way around without knowing much of written mandarin
8. most attending in major hospitals are older generation doctors that learned the English medical terminalogy in Japanese pronouncation; thus, it will take some time to get used to what they are talking about although they are speaking English
I think that pretty much covers everything I know about Taiwan board
just my 2 cents
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