I know lots of people from the Caribbean med schools, so it is tough for me to stay objective on this topic. My friends, about five of them, all were able to make it through medical school and get residencies.
But objectively, the Caribbean schools should go away.
Here are my two big issues with the Caribbean:
1) They produce medical students, but they don't have residencies. If they had residencies of their own, that would be a good starting point.
2) The attrition rate and fail to match rates are so high in the Caribbean that it actually puts a big strain on the rest of the non-Caribbean medical students. Attrition and fail to match rates for MD and DO is less than 5%. In my eyes, I think that students should be able to secure low interest rate loans. I sincerely believe that the average person in undergrad has a better chance to go into bankruptcy and not be able to pay off their loans than the average medical student. But look at the interest rates! It's insane. And I do believe that a very large part of it is the Caribbean. You remove the Caribbean from the equation, and I believe that we have a real chance to get loans that reflect the true risk of medical school attrition/fail to match. If I was ACGME, AOA, and AMA I would be lobbying hard to for the federal government to not secure loans from students in the Caribbean. The two pots MUST be separated.
