I've been accepted into both Ross and St. Georges for January 2012 admission. I'm a Canadian citizen who is also considering applying to McMaster University in Canada. My ultimate goal is to work in the United States and I hope to land a residency there. What would you recommend that I should do? Does anyone know the pros and cons of Ross and St. Georges, and how Caribbean schools in general rank relative to Canadian schools in the eyes of American hospitals for residency placement and hiring?
Ross versus St. Georges
- Thread starter Unga
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Check the Caribbean board - http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forumdisplay.php?f=90 and ValueMD - http://www.valuemd.com/index.php ...the vast majority of the pre-allo board is a) American (will not understand how hard Canadian med schools are to get into or what Canadian residency is like and b) anti-Caribbean (will tell you to reapply or go DO (lol at that from a Canadian's perspective) rather than go Caribbean.
Ross and SGU are two of the "Big 4" Caribbean schools so you wouldn't go wrong with either of them. But SGU is generally regarded as the better of the two fwiw.
Ross and SGU are two of the "Big 4" Caribbean schools so you wouldn't go wrong with either of them. But SGU is generally regarded as the better of the two fwiw.
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Why, if you want to practice in the US, most people on this board will recommend you not go to the Caribbean, but instead improve your app, and get into a US MD or DO school:
1) The Caribbean has a huge fail out rate. The lions share of their graduates never get a chance to match anywhere because they didn't graduate. Part of this is that the Carib takes many students who aren't ready for medical school, but who could have developed the necessary study skills if they had been more patient. Part of it is that the Carib, to try to make their 'success' rate in the match look better than it really is, probably fails out students that a US MD or DO school would have graduated.
2) They have a very low match rate in the US even for the people who do pass. The system in the US is basically that the Caribbean gets whatever is left over when MD and DO schools are done matching. Even at the best schools a huge chunk either don't match anywhere or they match into meaningless 'free labor' prelim/transitional years that don't lead to a license. Keep in mind these are the students that survived a culling process that probably would have failed out half of the class at many lower tier schools. Also this has the potential to get drastically worse in the next 4 years (even if GME funding isn't cut). Even now going to the Carib can basically makes impossible for you to get the more competitive residencies. If you don't want Family Medicine you probably need a new plan. Even if you do want FM, you could probably get a much better family residency from a US school than with equiavelent USMLE scores and grades from the Caribbean.
BTW, just how bad is your app? What is your cGPA, BCPM GPA, and MCAT?
1) The Caribbean has a huge fail out rate. The lions share of their graduates never get a chance to match anywhere because they didn't graduate. Part of this is that the Carib takes many students who aren't ready for medical school, but who could have developed the necessary study skills if they had been more patient. Part of it is that the Carib, to try to make their 'success' rate in the match look better than it really is, probably fails out students that a US MD or DO school would have graduated.
2) They have a very low match rate in the US even for the people who do pass. The system in the US is basically that the Caribbean gets whatever is left over when MD and DO schools are done matching. Even at the best schools a huge chunk either don't match anywhere or they match into meaningless 'free labor' prelim/transitional years that don't lead to a license. Keep in mind these are the students that survived a culling process that probably would have failed out half of the class at many lower tier schools. Also this has the potential to get drastically worse in the next 4 years (even if GME funding isn't cut). Even now going to the Carib can basically makes impossible for you to get the more competitive residencies. If you don't want Family Medicine you probably need a new plan. Even if you do want FM, you could probably get a much better family residency from a US school than with equiavelent USMLE scores and grades from the Caribbean.
BTW, just how bad is your app? What is your cGPA, BCPM GPA, and MCAT?
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whats up with you canadians wanting to practice in the US? Isn't there a doctor shortage in canada?
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$$$
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Haggis vs. Khlav Kalash.
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I have no interest in practicing in the States. You only get a confirmation bias here because most Canadians who post here want to practice in the States. Different story on the Canadian version of this site (premed101.com).
Also, the doctor shortage is gone by 2017 in Canada.
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Yes, visit the lol section of the forum.
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And what prestigious medical school did you attend that instilled such arrogance in you, ¿Señor?
