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Irish vs Caribbean medical schools


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Hi ,I am a Canadian citizen and recently got accepted in med school at Ireland but I'm debating whether this is better in getting a residency spot in Canada or applying to St.George uni at Caribbean where graduates get good residency spots in US,any thoughts?

 

Generally, Ireland is viewed as more prestigious. Caribbean accepts everyone whereas Ireland is selective. You can go to Ireland with the express interest in matching in the US if you'd like as well. You can do medical electives in the US to gain clinical experience.

 

The Carib really is the bottom of the barrel with the exception of maybe SGU.

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the islands:

 

a. train you for the usmle, you follow the US curriculum, you have US clinical exposure at good sites!, good US hospital afflictions and ref letters, and much cheaper, 4 yrs

 

ireland:

no US clinical exposure- rarely will you have US, no usmle prep, 5 yrs , SOME exposure to canadian sites (with probably a less than 25% of matching in canada), very very expensive

 

== less chance of returning to us

 

if u wanna stay in US - islands

 

if u wanna gamble for canada - ireland

 

andddd no ireland is not viewed as prestigious

 

your IMG

 

IMG= Ireland and any 3rd world MD

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Impossible that someone would say Ireland is as prestigious as Caribbean. Caribbean schools have power outages all the time, bandwith limits and are run by multinational for profit corporations that trade on the NYSE. The only people they care about are shareholders.

 

There is nothing to debate about this. People will always think less of a Caribbean school.

 

I dare you to go up to an Irishman and tell him his universities are equivalent to DeVry's money making machine in the Caribbean. You'll be in the hospital faster than you can say jack robinson.

 

+ Irish grads have USMLE tutors, and they go to the US for electives all the time (they have arranged electives with american medical schools like Columbia, Penn), they don't arrange anything with Canada either dude. People who go to Ireland then apply to Canada or the US basically all have to do it themselves, if you need someone to lead you around all day, you'd bomb in Ireland.

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Impossible that someone would say Ireland is as prestigious as Caribbean. Caribbean schools have power outages all the time, bandwith limits and are run by multinational for profit corporations that trade on the NYSE. The only people they care about are shareholders.

Right, I'm SURE it's way different and the Irish schools care about their Canadian students. I'm sure it's not the $300,000 paycheques or anything. ;)

 

There really is no ideal place to go. There are bigoted people like this guy who think Irish schools are better, because of ignorance. Although it's unjustified, it does play some small role in selection process. So if you can afford the extra $200k to attend an Irish school, then do it. But on a cost-benefit analysis, for all that extra money you aren't getting much extra out of it.

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I might almost argue that a Caribbean school will be a better idea in the near future. Well, the least bad of several terrible options. With the extra residency spots for IMGs vanishing in the US, the only way you're going to get a spot is if a program picks you over a US grad. The only real way you could do that is if you do all of your cores and electives at one medical school in the states. That will give you ample time for staff to get to know you, impress the hell out of them, and then have them select you. Doing one elective as an Irish student might not be enough time for them to know you well enough, especially with so many US graduates competing against you.

 

The catch is that most Caribbean schools have rotations that aren't really affiliated with a medical school, or will bounce you all over the US, so you won't get that connection. So the only way it would be a good idea to go Carib is if you can get a guarantee that you can do your rotations all in one spot. I was fortunate to do all of my clerkship at one med school in the midwest, and got to know the program director and other staff really well over the 2 years. Many of my classmates did get bounced around different sites and at low-quality rotations, so nothing is guaranteed.

 

As for your chances with CaRMS, there probably is a slight advantage to going to Ireland because of its reputation, whether it's misplaced or not. That said, there are plenty of Caribbean students who match to Canada (myself included), and what's far more important than your school are your board scores, letters of recommendation, Canadian elective experience, and the interview.

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Impossible that someone would say Ireland is as prestigious as Caribbean. Caribbean schools have power outages all the time, bandwith limits and are run by multinational for profit corporations that trade on the NYSE. The only people they care about are shareholders.

 

There is nothing to debate about this. People will always think less of a Caribbean school.

 

I dare you to go up to an Irishman and tell him his universities are equivalent to DeVry's money making machine in the Caribbean. You'll be in the hospital faster than you can say jack robinson.

 

+ Irish grads have USMLE tutors, and they go to the US for electives all the time (they have arranged electives with american medical schools like Columbia, Penn), they don't arrange anything with Canada either dude. People who go to Ireland then apply to Canada or the US basically all have to do it themselves, if you need someone to lead you around all day, you'd bomb in Ireland.

 

 

 

 

good luck dude,

 

hope you enjoy re-studying for the usmle AFTER you graduate from medschool

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Love how this has become a "My med school has a bigger d*** than your med school" debate.

 

Fact: Caribbean has lower standards

Fact: It won't really matter what school you go to in the end, you still have to work your ass off the same amount for USMLE or MCQEE exams to get considered for positions.

 

Irish schools such as RCSI do have some pull for electives in canada whereas Caribbean schools have some pull in the states.

 

Its all about what u want and where will give u the best environment to perform. I personally think that if i were to be studying 10 minutes away from a tropical beach, i wouldn't be able to focus as much. All comes down to preference.

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* iam not in the Caribbean, im in the USA

 

im only basing this on the fact that the US is the only country that can train IMGs

 

the BEST connection to USA will be through island schools. If your gambling to be in the 18% (carms match for IMG in canada) then go ireland.

 

never once have I seen Ireland and "higher standard", mentioned in the same sentence

 

USA match rate for non american IMGs was 55% (probably around 75%)

 

id rather take 55% vs 18%

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I don't know where u get your stats, but let me show you some FACTS about Ireland before you make up some more. These are the match stats of THIS YEAR (this is total match Canada and USA by number of students matched/# of IMG per school.

 

UCD = 11/21 (52%)

RCSI = 33/35 (94%)

Trinity = 14/15 (93%)

UCC = 16/24 (67%)

NUI = 3/3 (100%)

UL = 21/28 (75%)

 

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/nimsaucd/useful-files

 

You see when u quote real sources its hard to refute. I can show u the breakdown between Canada and USA match if u'd like.

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dude, after looking through those files (of which 0 were useful- being only presentations to attract students)

 

i still cannot find a single files that has your data??

From Ireland: 78 Applicants : 48 Matched (= 62%)

 

look at that 1 file:

 

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxuaW1zYXVjZHxneDozZDczNDkwYWQyZjU1ODQ0

 

all the data floats around 50% match success for USA (and for canada too)

 

*again these are not even official files??

 

my sources:

 

http://www.carms.ca/eng/operations_R1reports_11_e.shtml

 

(18% return to canada)

 

http://www.nrmp.org/data/resultsanddata2012.pdf

 

(non US IMGs= 40%)

 

 

here is also a publication:

 

http://cmej.synergiesprairies.ca/cmej/index.php/cmej/article/view/145

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/02/22/canadian-students-medicine-overseas.html

 

"The survey noted the schools that recruit Canadian students in Ireland, Poland, other European countries and Australia have little or no postgraduate opportunities available for international students."

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but like i said, good luck studying for the USMLE after graduation

 

having barely any rotatons in the USA-- the big 3 have affiliation with TOP md programs, Cornell, Columbia, etc etc

 

and pretending those 1-2 electives (which mean nothing) in canada is ur door way for a residency spot

 

i will say it again:

 

Can MD = US MD> DO> big 3 Caribbean > ireland > other IMGs

 

...add UK in somewhere to the left

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* if u read your data properly, its 3 rounds of applications pretty much with 50% success rate or lower, which makes it look like they have a 99.9% match

 

that is very misleading

 

also if you notice, 1/2 of the schools have an "others" list, did not match, did not wanna match etc etc,

 

UCC had 8 students in that category!! thats 33%

UCD had 10 (with 21 matched?).. =??!!?!

 

the others dont even have this category (which makes you wonder), the statistics are VERY misleading and unofficial

 

id hate to be te one down in the hole +500K

 

atthe end of the day close ties to american hospitals and schools, 1 year less, and cheaper wins out

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First of all, those statistics are self-reported from the students to the school and are the most accurate u will find. Also they are the most up to date since they are from the recent year. Im not talking about american vs Canadian, i was simply talking about canadian which clearly shows that Ireland has the upper hand in this case. Most IMG students that go to IRELAND are canadien so its not really fair to look at IMG matches in Caribbean vs Canada.As a Canadian, it is much more difficult to acquire the proper visa to do your residency in the states.

 

Those that are in the "other" category is because they chose a foundation year or did research. There are some that don't apply to residency every year so i don't really understand what you're getting at. Not all programs are 5 years so you do not save a year, most schools such as RCSI, UCD and TCD do USMLE prep as well as allocate time for their students to study for it. You seem to have a very skewed vision of how the education is in Ireland. They are very science oriented which actually makes it much easier to study for the american exams.

 

Also look at the sample size, SGU has about 700 people, so clearly more people will match but then again look at the number of people that DONT match. Look at the thousand people that didn't match from all the Caribbean schools.

 

I myself am looking to go to RCSI as that seemed like a better option for me than the Caribbean. Studying on a tropical island doesn't seem like the ideal studious environment.

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I don't go to Ireland, but i've never met a single person who thinks some **** hole in the caribbean is better than a real university with history. Idgaf about what slashsev thinks since he seems to have a massive boner for the islands making him a lost cause.

 

At the end of the day, I, and many Canadians will always think Ireland is of higher quality than a 3rd world for profit medical school spewing machine. I still have respect for the big 4 but nothing else.

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Lol leviathan, you called me a bigot for saying ireland is better than caribbean? You went to ireland and you matched. What have you go to say for yourself? Aren't you an example of a success? Don't bite the nipple that fed you...

 

Either way, if leviathan has so much self hate then so be it. I don't go to Ireland, but i've never met a single person who thinks some **** hole in the caribbean is better than a real university with history. Idgaf about what slashsev thinks since he seems to have a massive boner for the islands making him a lost cause.

 

At the end of the day, I, and many Canadians will always think Ireland is of higher quality than a 3rd world for profit medical school spewing machine. I still have respect for the big 4 but nothing else.

 

lol.... Leviathan is a graduate of SABA University School of Medicine.. at The Bottom.. In the Caribbean.. Leviathan did not receive his medical training in Ireland....

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I called you a bigot because you treat Caribbean schools / grads with so much hatred and contempt, as a result of prejudices. That's kinda the definition of a bigot, but you're far from the only one. I'm sure I would probably think the same way if I hadn't gone to one, but thankfully it made me a bit more open minded. I even used to think medical training anywhere outside of Canada or the US was inferior. I've grown up a lot since then. It's human nature to stereotype and make presumptions based off little to no information, and I'm just trying to challenge you and others on some of those biases.

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good luck dude, (i dont mean that in a condescending way)

 

im a NON Caribbean US medical student, so quite frankly i dont really care..

 

but doing the research for many years, i never found ireland to make any sense (UK yes, not ireland)

 

with only last year electives as your gateway to usa vs core rotations and electives ...id pick the Caribbean

 

-- if you plan on a Canadian gamble (if you read that artciles and many others)-- your chances are very limited and as yrs go on and less and less spots are available

 

ps with 10 students (out of 21) opting "not" to match after 500K in debt for....a research position (that you can theoretically get out of highschool)---

that smells a little funky.

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good luck dude, (i dont mean that in a condescending way)

 

im a NON Caribbean US medical student, so quite frankly i dont really care..

 

but doing the research for many years, i never found ireland to make any sense (UK yes, not ireland)

 

with only last year electives as your gateway to usa vs core rotations and electives ...id pick the Caribbean

 

-- if you plan on a Canadian gamble (if you read that artciles and many others)-- your chances are very limited and as yrs go on and less and less spots are available

 

ps with 10 students (out of 21) opting "not" to match after 500K in debt for....a research position (that you can theoretically get out of highschool)---

that smells a little funky.

 

Your either lying here or you are lying on the other thread. http://www.premed101.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77879

 

You said on this thread: "you are a masters student in the US". On this thread you say "you are a medical student in the US". Stop making **** up to suit your own argument whenever it suits you. You don't know enough to be trying to change people's future lives...

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Your either lying here or you are lying on the other thread. http://www.premed101.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77879

 

You said on this thread: "you are a masters student in the US". On this thread you say "you are a medical student in the US". Stop making **** up to suit your own argument whenever it suits you. You don't know enough to be trying to change people's future lives...

 

Where in that post does he say he's a Masters student? I don't see that at all. He talks about some of the issues with doing a Masters, but nowhere does he say he's doing a Masters - just that students in his undergrad program got into Masters programs.

 

It's pretty clear from all his postings (although they are very difficult to read - I'm not a fan of text-speak) that he is studying medicine in the U.S.

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