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i'll give you a unfair anti-img bias. we have to pay a few hundred dollars more for step1 and 2 exams then our US grad counter parts. that seems pretty bias to me. other than that as long as you're not an idiot there is no bias. maybe if you get to the top notch university programs but still. if u get the grades anything is possible SGU had a guy match into IM at Yale and Anesthesia at Stanford this year. plus many many other quality university programs.
If you can survive basic sciences and do well on the step, then the only bias you will face are the ones you construct on your own.
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All one has to do is hunt around the forums for the bias and outright hypocrisy by people in all levels of medical education. In some way, the competitiveness and the desire to present an image of something they're not in is rampant and unending.
One thing one will see is the way people use the term "IMG" in a derogatory sense. Then there are those that like to imply that all IMG's and FM schools are made equal and below that of the US and all comparable to the Caribbean, despite many schools around the world being even higher ranked than US schools (particularly western European schools).
Another thing people like to do is to post the overall matching rate, but being completely unable to qualify any of the data and break it down on the stats of those not matched and what the factors were that caused them to not be matched. There's jsut a simple number. I personally know several FMG's that were tops in their classes in major western European countries and got their matches in competitive areas and have fantastic and prestigious careers running.
The moral is to be the best possible student you can be and do well on the USMLE.
Additionally, you'll see hypocrisy in that people will recommend DO because their entrance standards are lower than MD, while the DO's spit on the Caribbean and then defend themselves in saying their lower GPA or MCAT doesn't have much of a correlation with their ability to be a good physician or make it through med school.
Meanwhile, everyone is looking to piss on each other because, in the end, everyone will compete against one another and a top FMG (and they do exist!) will get a domestic's spot, and furthermore, will compete for the same jobs and same salaries after residency.
It was quite funny when someone recently tried to debate with me that such world-ranked med schools as Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Berlin, Bonn, Aachen, Zurich, Geneva, Heidelberg, Dresden, Munich, and others, were not as good as any American school, simply because they were not in the US. Meanwhile, people in the US have no choice but to collaborate with some of these schools due to their incredible amounts of research and advancements.
The recruiters know. Just be a top student and it won't make a difference.
One thing one will see is the way people use the term "IMG" in a derogatory sense. Then there are those that like to imply that all IMG's and FM schools are made equal and below that of the US and all comparable to the Caribbean, despite many schools around the world being even higher ranked than US schools (particularly western European schools).
Another thing people like to do is to post the overall matching rate, but being completely unable to qualify any of the data and break it down on the stats of those not matched and what the factors were that caused them to not be matched. There's jsut a simple number. I personally know several FMG's that were tops in their classes in major western European countries and got their matches in competitive areas and have fantastic and prestigious careers running.
The moral is to be the best possible student you can be and do well on the USMLE.
Additionally, you'll see hypocrisy in that people will recommend DO because their entrance standards are lower than MD, while the DO's spit on the Caribbean and then defend themselves in saying their lower GPA or MCAT doesn't have much of a correlation with their ability to be a good physician or make it through med school.
Meanwhile, everyone is looking to piss on each other because, in the end, everyone will compete against one another and a top FMG (and they do exist!) will get a domestic's spot, and furthermore, will compete for the same jobs and same salaries after residency.
It was quite funny when someone recently tried to debate with me that such world-ranked med schools as Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Berlin, Bonn, Aachen, Zurich, Geneva, Heidelberg, Dresden, Munich, and others, were not as good as any American school, simply because they were not in the US. Meanwhile, people in the US have no choice but to collaborate with some of these schools due to their incredible amounts of research and advancements.
The recruiters know. Just be a top student and it won't make a difference.
British med schools aren't very good. I did my 3rd year in London and learned alot about there medical education. They have had to make it easy. They don't take pharm they study a limited section of pharm for 2 weeks and this is the basis for self study to be done later. They don't take the full anatomy course, they select two areas of the body and are tested over those. They generally are not motivated in clinicals, skipping without penalty. In the last year, after goofing off for 5 years, they study a 200 page paperback book which has all the info they need to pass a qualifying exam in medicine. The brit medstudent knows that he or she is going to spend so much time as a house officer that they can learn all the important stuff later when they end up doing essentially a 15-20 year long residency.
I think most of the bias is just from premeds. By the time you are a resident, how good you really are in your field is what really matters. Think back in high school, how the people who got into upper tier private colleges (I'm one of those) liked to show off a little ego or perhaps even look down on the those who are going to their state school. Reality is that many of the ones who did the gloating are now working at Starbucks and temping at Macy's after college. You got to bust your ass wherever you go. If you think that by going to a US school you can work a little bit less hard than an IMG, then you likely won't be a great success in medical school either.
My thoughts are that you are likely to be able to get an IM residency in the US if you go to one of those schools and do well. It's unlikely to be IM at Harvard or UC San Francisco, but that doesn't matter much at all if you plan to do primary care. If you want to specialize in something like GI or cardiology, then going to a foreign school will tend to make it harder b/c it makes it harder to get into competitive university internal med programs, which tend to make it easier to get into these competitive specialty areas. However, there are IMG and FMG's every year who get into things like cardiology and GI, so if Caribbean schools are your best or only option then you can choose to take the risk.
The risk in all this is that fairly large numbers of US students go to schools like this and then they flunk out, after having paid a lot of tuition money. So really do some introspection and think about whether this is what you want to do...or whether it would be better (if you are a US citizen) to do some other health profession, or improve your application to try for a US school, which generally will make your life easier if you can get in.
As far as how people will treat you, if you end up being a good resident and do your work and know what you are doing, most colleagues will treat you well. Most patients are clueless about physician training so any discrimination you face would likely be at the hands of nurses, docs or administrators, and not patients.
The risk in all this is that fairly large numbers of US students go to schools like this and then they flunk out, after having paid a lot of tuition money. So really do some introspection and think about whether this is what you want to do...or whether it would be better (if you are a US citizen) to do some other health profession, or improve your application to try for a US school, which generally will make your life easier if you can get in.
As far as how people will treat you, if you end up being a good resident and do your work and know what you are doing, most colleagues will treat you well. Most patients are clueless about physician training so any discrimination you face would likely be at the hands of nurses, docs or administrators, and not patients.
You hit (clubbed) the baby seal on the head with this statement. There is no point in paying attention to others and their biases when you have no other option. Would I rather walk 10 miles or drive in a craptastic Yugo while everyone laughs at me for it? Pffffft! Give me the Yugo anyday because people can only make you see yourself differently if you allow them to (unjustifiably, of course, b/c if you are a dangerous IMG doc, then you need to go).
Nothing you have said here is true!
We certainly don't study pharm for 2 weeks! No idea where you have randomly picked that number from but it features from the first to the last day of my course. 2 parts of the body in anatomy? Are you mental? We study everything! We are very motivated clinically thanks and outperform our US counterparts in that area. 200 page book? Again absolutely no idea what you are talking about. There is no specific book anyone reads for their finals, we use a massive variety of books as well as things like uptodate. Qualifying exam? Nothing here is referred to as a qualifying exam, we have finals which vary according to school, don't know if you are suggesting there is some kind of national exam but for the record, there isn't. 15-20 year residency is again nonsense. We have 2 foundation years then a varying number of ST years (think 8 is max) then you apply for consultant jobs. None of our 5 London schools is at all as you described, they are among the best in the world, as are our graduates. There are some random private 'medical schools', most of which I think are in London. None of these are recognised by the GMC, aren't really medical schools and at the end of it you aren't a doctor, they are a total scam . Either you are talking about one of these or you are just randomly making up crap to amuse yourself.
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It's not a year either, it's just not split like that anymore in the vast majority of UK schools. We have some pharm throughout the year, every year. I'm not sure if any of our schools have a subject based curriculum anymore, most, if not all are systems based. As we do a system we do the associated pharm etc. The way each thing is taught changes once you get to clinicals but all aspects of each system are taught every year of the course.
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