questions by US-IMG

[MilitaryHopeful]

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Hello all,

This is my first post here. I am a US citizen who went to the caribbean for med school. Changed careers from engineering to go to med school overseas, and this was my best option. I am in my mid-late 30's and will graduate within one year.

A classmate who is retired Navy (medic) told me to look into the military option for residency.

I have read a few threads, and am wondering, is this something that is unrealistic? I am interested in some competitive residencies (radiology, opthalmology), as well as less competive residencies (internal medicine).

I have a ton of questions, but I thought I would start with this one. Any advice would help.

Thanks.

 

[notdeadyet]

You need to do a U.S. civilian internship first. As a graduate of a foreign medical school, you can not join the military as a physician until you have completed a U.S. civilian internship.

After you've done that, you can see about joining the military. For the competitive specialties you've listed, expect to do a utilization tour first as a GMO tour.

Read the stickies as well, and they'll answer a lot of your questions about how competitive the different specialties are in the military.

 

[NavyFP]

You could apply for an internal medicine internship. The Navy did look at IMGs for intern starts last year. Should there be a spot available, they could consider you for it. I doubt you will be competitive for Rads or Optho though. You would need exceedingly good USMLEs to be given reasonable consideration.