Visiting Surgical Electives in USA (for the prospective IMG)

[Surgical FMG]

Hi. Come 2010, I will be final year (5th yr) undergraduate MBBS medical student. I am interested in pursuing a Gen Surg Residency in USA after graduation and maybe 1 year of internship in Melbourne. I.e. Match 2012.

In 2010, I can spend up to 12 weeks overseas for electives and am considering the following places. They do not require USMLE Step 1.

1. Northwestern - 4 weeks - tuition $1000 (website)
2. Mt Sinai - 4 weeks - tuition $500 (website)
3. SUNY Downstate - tuition nil (website)
4. Texas-San Antonio - minimum 3 months, i.e. three 4-week rotations - tuition nil (website)
5. North Shore Long Island Jewish Healthcare System (affiliated with Albert Einstein College of Medicine) - 4 weeks (website)
6. UCLA - 6 weeks (website)

Of course, the main objective of doing these rotations is to try to get a letter of recommendation from the Program Director or the Head of Department, him/her being US faculty. I've heard letters from other places (e.g. surgical faculty back in Melbourne, however famous they might be) are essentially useless.

And since 3 LORs are usually required, i am thinking of doing 3 different rotations.

Question is, should i do so in "bigger name institutions" like NW and MS. Would the LORs from the faculty members there be better? Or should i stick to Texas San Antonio, where previous participants of their surgical elective program have told me they managed to obtain LORs from the PD, Chair of Surgery, even the President of the University. The thing with Texas is that i will be there for 3 months, so its a longer time to get to know people and perhaps might work in my favour in getting LORs, versus 4-weeks where u gotta get down to it and impress fairly quickly.
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Another consideration I have been told to make was whether the program was IMG-friendly in the first place. There might be less value auditing at that place when they have never accepted an International applicant before. So they might write a courtesy letter, or even grant a courtesy interview, but nothing will come out of it.

Below are some stats i found from the FACS residency website, which reveals the proportion of IMGs in the program:

1. Northwestern: 0%
2. Mt Sinai: 0%
3. Texas San Antonio: 4%
4. North Shore Long Island: 20% dept website
5. SUNY Health Science Centre at Brooklyn: 10%
6. Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Beth Israel: 33%
7. UCLA - 3%

Other IMG-friendly surgical programs

1. New York Medical College (bronx)/Our Lady of Mercy/Lincoln: 100%! dept website
2. New York Medical College (Brooklyn-Queens): 90%
3. [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]New York Medical College (Sound Shore) Program: 20%[/SIZE].
4. Seton Hall University School of Health and Medical Sciences (St Francis) Program: 50%

This is the FACS Residency Search website. If you can, do continue the listing of IMG-friendly surgical programs and post the stats and links as i have above! Hopefully this list will come in useful to all IMGs!

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[Blitz2006]

Hey, thanks for the awesome post.

I am in a very similar position as you.

I'm a 3rd year medical student at University of Birminhgam (UK), and would like to do General Surgery residency in the States once I graduate (2012).

Next year (4th year) I get 8 weeks to do electives, so I'm also looking at doing two 4 week electives in the U.S.

However, I am not an american citizen, so I am looking at Hospitals that sponsor H1B visa.

Are you an American citizen? Do you know which hospitals sponsor H1B visa for Gen. Surg residents?

Thx again for the links, that facs website is great.