HussainGQ said:
How is the reputation of St. Mathews in the U.S? Is it a decent school to apply to?? And please, no more rants about applying to the "Big Three", I know about all that. This thread is specifically for information about St. Mathews. Why it would be a good choice, or why it would be a bad choice.
Thankyou
The school used to be in Belize, Central America. While there, they had many problems. They recently re-established themselves in Grand Cayman, a very "comfy" island near Jamaica.
In September 2002, they got a huge influx of students from Ross after many left because of a substantial and unforeseen policy change that screwed-over a lot of people. As a result, many of these students (who were at the lower end of the Ross spectrum) substantially boosted the school's matriculation rate, and a lot of these students will be in the upcoming 2005 Match, if they are still tracking on time to make it.
Some of these students are getting clerkship opportunities in the same hospitals in New York that other Carib students rotate at. They also have their own affiliated institution in Maine, and you get an MSHSA degree (roughly a masters in public administration) along with your M.D. I'm not aware of any particular licensing issues in any states, but since they are a lesser known entity this may be a problem in some of the more difficult states (Texas, California, just to name a couple of the biggies).
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How students do in the Match, I've come to believe, is probably the single most important indicator of the caliber of a school - that goes for U.S. or Caribbean. It says a lot about how Program Directors (PDs) perceive the strength of the program in producing qualified graduates ready to continue their specialty training. This will give you the best indicator of the reputation of the school more than anyone will be able to on this forum.
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Most Carib students, no matter which school they go to, will end-up somewhere in primary care (e.g., Family Practice, Pediatrics, General Internal Medicine, etc.). You can get a residency in one of the slightly more competitive ones for students from the Carib, like Emergency Medicine, Anesthesiology, Categorical General Surgery, OBGYN, just to name a few, if you have good board scores, good recommendations, etc. But, it is nearly impossible to get the top competitive residencies. Know this before you make any decisions, especially if you have your heart set on being an orthopedist, opthamologist, dermatologist, or neurosurgeon.
Having said that, I think the best comparison you're going to make would be one where you look at the residency appointment list of
recent graduates in comparison to those of other schools. I'd go to St. Matt's website and look. If you can't get it there, you should ask for a list of of recent grads from the school and where they went.
Also, a good "quick and dirty" comparison you can make is the number of appointments that they get per year (residency appointments) compared to the number of students that matriculate each year. For instance, if the school admits 500 students per calendar year, but four years later year only 200 get into residencies, then you know that the school has an overall attrition rate of 60%. This may sound high, but this is the case for many of the Caribbean schools - even the well-known and established ones. This will give you an average of
overall attrition at the school, which accounts from everything to students who leave for personal reasons, those who fail out, those who make it through the basic sciences curriculum but then who cannot pass the USMLE, etc.
If you are able to get this information, I'm sure people would be interested in seeing it here. Perhaps you can do some research, and post a few credible links to what you find. I say this because I think most of the people you ask this question here are going to have similar questions as you, without many answers. You may be able to help others in this forum get the information you're also seeking. And, that would be cool.
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