MSK9's Medical School Thread & Guide

[MSK9]

Ohhhh snap!!! What a freaking legend! I’m so proud of you, and I’m happy that you’re kicking this things butt. There’s no doubt that a Caribbean is extremely challenging to make work, extremely small success rate. I’m crazy proud of you! You’ll be a Doctor soon enough, at this point it’s in your blood.

Are you planning on practicing in the UK? If so, do you have to match into a residency like the US does? I’m not too familiar on that process.

Thank you very much. The Caribbean route is tough but there’s a lot of bad info out there about it.. especially on sites like the Student Doctor Network, where the population pretends that only people who couldn’t cut it academically go there (3.9 undergrad science GPA here, for example). A lot of the statistics coming out of NMRP are skewed by way of their aggregation techniques. 

For example, IMG students from the US matching back to the US have an extremely match rate. IMG students from outside the US (excluding Canada) have a more difficult time, and often due to J-1 visa issue acceptance at the programs they apply to. The two subgroups are calculated together, along with IMG graduates who are going back to their home countries to train/practice. In other words, didn’t match because they didn’t apply. 

We all have to take and pass the same USMLE board exams to advance through medical school. 

The “big four” schools: St. G, Ross, Saba and AUC don’t typically have issues with the match and the few that do, end up getting jobs outside the match (The SOAP or the ‘Scramble’). In fact, the system I’m currently at has many, many AUC grads working as attendings. I can’t speak on the other schools, but St. G’s grads are matching into more competitive programs all the time. Neurosurgery included. 

I’ll be practicing in the US, where I’m from and currently am doing clerkships.