UCC med student doing clinical electives in Canada or the United States?

[Jloyay]

Hi guys,

I am a Canadian student who graduated from UofT last year and I was accepted into UCC for their 4 year med program. On the Atlantic Bridge website it says that we are allowed to pursue clinical electives back in North America.

My question is how hard is it to get a placement back in North America? Does it help at all when applying for residency/internship (in Canada and the US)? Am I right to assume that a positive reference from a North American elective (Canada or the US) would be better than one that was done in Ireland?

Also, is it rare for an IMG without an American passport to get residency in the United States? I'm talking even family medicine in a rural university. My first choice would actually be to get a FM residency spot in Canada but I've been told the US is more receptive to IMGs. Is there any truth to that? Is it doable if I score well on my USMLE and clinicals/classes?

Thanks for the help.

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[amsaIE]

Congratulations on getting into UCC. Cork is a lovely city.

Generally speaking (I don't know the specifics with Cork), if you want to match back into the US or Canada, you will do electives in either or both countries in the summer after your penultimate year. These electives are super important to your chances of getting back to North America. US sub internships are 4 weeks long and Canadian electives are typically 2 weeks long, so you can mix and match.

These electives are fairly hard to get, and are only getting harder, however your institution will try to help you to varying degrees. Many Irish Universities have collaborative agreements with US and Canadian hospitals (good ones too, John's hopkins, Duke, Cleveland etc). Irish letters of recc typically are less favorable than US ones

It is more difficult, but not impossible for a non-US IMG to get back to the US. The 2015 rate was 49.5% for non-US IMGs vs 53% for US IMGs overall. You can find the advance data for the 2015 match here: http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ADT2015_final.pdf . We don't have data back from Irish schools yet for 2015, but they are typically much better than the average global rate - typically in the 85%+ match rate, and to excellent programs and competitive specialties. Many Canadians match and do not have US passports - it is slightly harder and you have to deal with visas, but it is by no means impossible. The match rates to Canada are typically very high as well, again to highly competitive specialties and excellent places.

 

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[deleted158872]

does anyone know what U.S. hospitals UCC is affiliated with for elective rotations?