UK citizen/US grad seeking residency in UK

[piggaloo]

I posted this on the "Europe" forum and realized it's probably more appropriate for "UK & Ireland".

I am a UK citizen and in my fourth year of medical school in Dallas, TX. Like most of my classmates, I'm thinking about doing my residency training in the States (in neurology, if all goes well). However, even though I will be graduating from a US medical school, I'm an FMG to US residency programs from a visa standpoint. (I'm married to an American, but I don't have a Green Card yet, so I'll need a visa to do my residency.) All of this makes me think about training in the UK, but I have no idea how I can apply or if I would even qualify. I'd appreciate any information you can offer. Thank you.

PS: Also, feel free to let me know if you think this is a worthless and crazy idea.

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[FionaS]

Well, you can apply. You need to bone up on the foundation training programme (www.mmc.nhs.uk will probably get you there - if you google modernising medical careers).

I assume you've just started MS4. Applications will be via MTAS or whatever they'll be calling it by then, in around Nov/Dec this year. Bear in mind this has changed every year for the past 3 years, so no one can really tell you what will be happening this year...

This year just gone people had to rank all the deaneries in the UK in order of preference, and were then themselves ranked by whatever they chose as their top ranked deanery. If things matched up, they were offered a programme in their top deanery, and only then did you get to see what programmes were available in that deanery.

Open, fair and transparent huh?

Anyway, it'll probably be different again by the time it gets round to your time!

I'm not quite sure how it works for non-EEA grads, which you will be considered as despite you're UK citizenship, and again any advice I give will probably be out of date tomorrow anyway.

So, from the point of view of getting a job over here, doable, lots of hurdles to jump, but you'd expect that anyway applying from another country.

As to whether it's a good idea? I assume you're fairly settled in the US - american wife and all. Does she have a job that'll move easily to the UK? Further, the UK medical job market is VERY unsettled at the moment. Google remedy UK if you want to know more about the frustration we're all experiencing with MMC at the moment.

All that said, you still get excellent training, and the hours alone are worth it (capped at 56 hours a week - you will work more, but not much more than 65 hours a week).

Personally, for all I love the UK and think the training here is pretty good on balance, you sound like you're doing well in the US system, doing your USMLEs etc. I suspect you'll do better as an FMG in the US system which is at least familiar, than as an FMG over here.

Still, if you decide to bite the bullet, I'm happy to advise ad hoc... (Bearing in mind that I'm generally busy and I'm not normally this prone to long posts. Damn alcohol!)