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Irish vs Caribbean medical schools


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Yes very very fishy.

 

I never knew i had a stalker here

*what a loser, indeed

 

 

text speak rocks!!

and

dude, good luck in Ireland...have fun and stay safe and do well in class. I'ant here to wish you bad karma.

 

Quite frankly i dont care where you go/dont go for medicine

 

I posted my points, and my concerns and so did the others.

 

And you stalking my posts dude

 

that is...just ..sad

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If you go to any Caribbean school that has 50 state accreditation, the quality of education will likely be as good as any of the Irish schools.

 

For canada: the Irish schools have better reputation in Canada, so they might give you a very small edge. The major factors though are not school but your board scores, grades, letter of rec, canadian electives (going to a Carib school probably gives you more time for electives, actually). With two applicants being exactly identical except for school, they might take the Irish grad over the Carib grad.

 

For the US: The carib schools probably win out if you can get all of your rotations at a decent site affiliated with a US medical school or a good post-grad program in your intended specialty. There are also lots of dubious clinical rotations that Carib schools send their students to, so be very cautious.

 

For ensuring you just match and have a job July 1st: Any option is now bad. But if you had to pick: There's very few spots in Canada so the Irish edge there is almost irrelevant. The lack of spots in the US also means you have little chance there, but at least from a Carib school you might convince your home program to take you over the sea of US grads. If you're an Irish student doing a couple electives, you won't have that same weight. So overall I agree with others that a carib school in today's climate might be better if you just want to make sure you match, but regardless that chance is almost zero no matter where you go. I feel like a broken record but it really has to be said.

 

I can't answer how post-grad training works in Ireland/UK/Australia but if you have a guarantee at matching in one of those systems, then picking one of those schools is the best choice. To my knowledge it sounds like the matching chances for international students in those countries is also dismal.

 

And don't disregard DO schools or US MD schools. So many people just jump straight to the Carib/Ireland/UK without considering these MUCH better options.

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and by the way, if your using premed101 as your "research" to go IMG and fork out 500K

 

....you might as well give me the $$ and ill give u a degree in medicon

 

Lol very true. Don't just listen to me, do your own research and verify what I'm saying and others are saying.

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If you go to any Caribbean school that has 50 state accreditation, the quality of education will likely be as good as any of the Irish schools.

 

For canada: the Irish schools have better reputation in Canada, so they might give you a very small edge. The major factors though are not school but your board scores, grades, letter of rec, canadian electives (going to a Carib school probably gives you more time for electives, actually). With two applicants being exactly identical except for school, they might take the Irish grad over the Carib grad.

 

For the US: The carib schools probably win out if you can get all of your rotations at a decent site affiliated with a US medical school or a good post-grad program in your intended specialty. There are also lots of dubious clinical rotations that Carib schools send their students to, so be very cautious.

 

For ensuring you just match and have a job July 1st: Any option is now bad. But if you had to pick: There's very few spots in Canada so the Irish edge there is almost irrelevant. The lack of spots in the US also means you have little chance there, but at least from a Carib school you might convince your home program to take you over the sea of US grads. If you're an Irish student doing a couple electives, you won't have that same weight. So overall I agree with others that a carib school in today's climate might be better if you just want to make sure you match, but regardless that chance is almost zero no matter where you go. I feel like a broken record but it really has to be said.

 

I can't answer how post-grad training works in Ireland/UK/Australia but if you have a guarantee at matching in one of those systems, then picking one of those schools is the best choice. To my knowledge it sounds like the matching chances for international students in those countries is also dismal.

 

And don't disregard DO schools or US MD schools. So many people just jump straight to the Carib/Ireland/UK without considering these MUCH better options.

 

 

amen!

nail, hammer, hit

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I think that going to the Carribean is the better option. It's usually much cheaper. You get really good step 1 as part of your curriculum. You usually rotate at US sites known to take previous grads from your school. Moreover, the rate of acceptance into Canadian residencies is only a small notch below their Irish counterparts. I would go with SGU or Saba over Irish or Australian.

 

And I just wanted to add something. And this is MY opinion of course. The whole FMG's being phased out of US residencies is overblown IMO. Sure, it's quite difficult for them to match into really good academic programs, but other than that, there is still ample space to accomodate decent candidates. You definitely can't be too selective but if you are okay with going to lower tier academic programs or decent community one's and you are okay with IM, peds, psych, FM, neuro, PM&R, OB Gyn etc, then the Carribean is still a viable path to achieve your goals. For instance, the class composition of most IM (and even this year's incoming class) programs in Michigan is >60% FMG. And I don't see that changing anytime soon.

 

Ideally, though, like leviathan has just said, make sure you can't get into a US MD or DO program before going the foreign route.

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In the near future those traditionally non-competitive spots will be snatched up by AMGs who couldn't get anything better. IMGs will be left screwed. Some of the might still match if they're top-notch candidates and did all of their training in one spot where the program really gets to know them. As a CSA it might still be hard though because there's so many american IMGs who they don't have to shell out money to sponsor a work visa.

 

You never know though. Only time will tell what happens.

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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.

Hi,Would your opinion change if you know that my uni is Limerick which is the newest one 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.

 

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.

Thanks for your reply,but my university is Limerick which has only one graduating class ,match rate of that class was 22/30,in US and Canada.But when I compare to St.George's in Caribbean,it's been around for 35 yrs and much much more stats.

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Thanks for your reply,but my university is Limerick which has only one graduating class ,match rate of that class was 22/30,in US and Canada.But when I compare to St.George's in Caribbean,it's been around for 35 yrs and much much more stats.

 

Theres a reason they only tell you the gross stats, i.e. the number of people they get into residency. They never told you the number of people who went to the Caribbean.

 

So if SGU has 100 matches to residency you don't know if its 100/100 or 100/1200. SGU has been around for 35 years which is similar to Limerick. At the end of the day it will depend on you.

 

American residencies prefer US citizens which most SGU students are over Canadians because they have to fill out paper work for you. Second if you ask for H1B, most residencies will reject you outright, with a J1 you are essentially forced out of the country after residency back to Canada for 2 years. So you won't really be able to practice in the US. In Canada you would have to write the licensing exams and then work under a physician for a year to practice.

 

At this point i would take whichever is cheaper since neither really seems to have much of an advantage over the other. SGU is the best Carib school which makes it more difficult to choose. Although living wise, SGU has Limerick beat. 2 years in the Caribbean + 2 years in NY > 4 years in Limerick.

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Theres a reason they only tell you the gross stats, i.e. the number of people they get into residency. They never told you the number of people who went to the Caribbean.

 

So if SGU has 100 matches to residency you don't know if its 100/100 or 100/1200. SGU has been around for 35 years which is similar to Limerick. At the end of the day it will depend on you.

 

American residencies prefer US citizens which most SGU students are over Canadians because they have to fill out paper work for you. Second if you ask for H1B, most residencies will reject you outright, with a J1 you are essentially forced out of the country after residency back to Canada for 2 years. So you won't really be able to practice in the US. In Canada you would have to write the licensing exams and then work under a physician for a year to practice.

 

At this point i would take whichever is cheaper since neither really seems to have much of an advantage over the other. SGU is the best Carib school which makes it more difficult to choose. Although living wise, SGU has Limerick beat. 2 years in the Caribbean + 2 years in NY > 4 years in Limerick.

 

SGU isn't cheap. Saba is though. AUC is also expensive but still cheaper than SGU.

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This thread caught my eye. I have to say with regards to people mentioning about third world medical schools i.e. schools in non-white countries producing inferior physicians simply because they are third world (in other words in non-white countries), there are numerous IMGs from third world countries that have come to the US and made great strides in advancing medicine including:

 

Abraham Verghese - health system critic, educator at stanford

S.R. Mallampati - came up with the Mallampati scale to judge airway intubation difficulty

Sudhir Srivastava - involved in the development of the totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass surgery using the da vinci robot system

 

Please reserve your prejudices to things like food and music etc

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This thread caught my eye. I have to say with regards to people mentioning about third world medical schools i.e. schools in non-white countries producing inferior physicians simply because they are third world (in other words in non-white countries), there are numerous IMGs from third world countries that have come to the US and made great strides in advancing medicine including:

 

Abraham Verghese - health system critic, educator at stanford

S.R. Mallampati - came up with the Mallampati scale to judge airway intubation difficulty

Sudhir Srivastava - involved in the development of the totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass surgery using the da vinci robot system

 

Please reserve your prejudices to things like food and music etc

 

we aren't talking about the people in those countries we are talking about the facilities.

 

I heard in prague at Charles medical school which is considered a 1st world country they don't even have soaps in their washrooms for physicians to use in hospitals and the equipment is in bad condition.

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This thread caught my eye. I have to say with regards to people mentioning about third world medical schools i.e. schools in non-white countries producing inferior physicians simply because they are third world (in other words in non-white countries), there are numerous IMGs from third world countries that have come to the US and made great strides in advancing medicine including:

 

Abraham Verghese - health system critic, educator at stanford

S.R. Mallampati - came up with the Mallampati scale to judge airway intubation difficulty

Sudhir Srivastava - involved in the development of the totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass surgery using the da vinci robot system

 

Please reserve your prejudices to things like food and music etc

 

And how many people had to work minimum wage jobs because they couldn't get certified in Canada?

 

The odds are forever against them.

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This thread caught my eye. I have to say with regards to people mentioning about third world medical schools i.e. schools in non-white countries producing inferior physicians simply because they are third world (in other words in non-white countries), there are numerous IMGs from third world countries that have come to the US and made great strides in advancing medicine including:

 

Abraham Verghese - health system critic, educator at stanford

S.R. Mallampati - came up with the Mallampati scale to judge airway intubation difficulty

Sudhir Srivastava - involved in the development of the totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass surgery using the da vinci robot system

 

Please reserve your prejudices to things like food and music etc

 

I still think that we should close the door to basically all IMGs. The training outside of Canada/US is too variable to broadly consider it adequate.

 

Third-world countries generally have third-world resources and a ton of corruption(even more than we have!).

 

I read in some family med journal that the CCFP exam is failed by a significantly higher number of IMGs than CMGs for issues that transcend merely language barriers.

 

I say we open up medical school seats to interested, enthusiastic individuals, including IMGs. The first year classes would have 500 people. Second year, 300. The wards, 150. Graduation, 100. Many would enter, few would leave.

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I still think that we should close the door to basically all IMGs. The training outside of Canada/US is too variable to broadly consider it adequate.

 

Third-world countries generally have third-world resources and a ton of corruption(even more than we have!).

 

I read in some family med journal that the CCFP exam is failed by a significantly higher number of IMGs than CMGs for issues that transcend merely language barriers.

 

I say we open up medical school seats to interested, enthusiastic individuals, including IMGs. The first year classes would have 500 people. Second year, 300. The wards, 150. Graduation, 100. Many would enter, few would leave.

 

This is an interesting proposal. Basically this is what they do in France.

 

The issue I have with it is that it's wasting a lott of time for many, many people. Kind of messing up the generation because now these people, in these late 20s, 30s, whatever now have to delay getting married, etc. because they need a new job/career.

 

It's good in theory but I feel like it causes a lot of damage. What do you think?

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This is an interesting proposal. Basically this is what they do in France.

 

The issue I have with it is that it's wasting a lott of time for many, many people. Kind of messing up the generation because now these people, in these late 20s, 30s, whatever now have to delay getting married, etc. because they need a new job/career.

 

It's good in theory but I feel like it causes a lot of damage. What do you think?

 

My understanding in France is that your priority for choosing a postgrad position depends on your ranking in the final medical school exams.

 

I don't think we have the capacity and funds in Canada to train large numbers of medical students with the expectation that over with will fail out. That's why we have undergrad to see whether students can manage post-secondary programs adequately, and I think the current system - for the most part - works to admit people who can handle the academic requirements.

 

Having said that, undergrad medicine offices seem quite unwilling to fail out students, even when they have demonstrated repeated academic problems. The problem, I suppose, is that tuition represents an ever increasing sunk cost, so that it can become difficult to kick someone out who will then be stuck with >$50,000 in debt.

 

So what do you think should cause someone to get kicked out?

Failing multiple blocks?

Blowing off a call shift to go to a conference?

Not showing up to an OSCE because it's not for formal final evaluation?

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I think it's one of those proposals that sounds appealing before you go through medical school and realize that early performance in medical school has as much bearing on your later clinical acumen as excelling in undergraduate organic chemistry or physics. It's one of the reasons that many North American medical schools don't even bother giving students catagorical or numerical grades at all.

 

There are no good metrics with which to weed out less capable prospective doctors. I don't think it makes any difference if the weeding out occurs during undergrad, medical school admissions or during medical school. the selection is always unfair and emphasizes process over outcome.

 

The essential problem of effectively predicting which student will make a better doctor out of a pool of applicants is ubiquitous at every selection point. The selection processes we use are usually considered valid if they create catagories by which applicants can be differentiated. They don't by necessity or practice need to select good applicants as there is no emphasis placed internal controls to ensure good resource allocation on any substantive scale.

 

The selection proccess is much easier if it doesn't need to revisit past decisions. 'We have an excellent class' is much easier than 'we can prove we selected the best group if candidates from all possible groups'. And remember this is not a proccess that receives anything close to adequate resources to make these decisions let alone research them.

 

And the problem is again the selection criteria. Wrote knowledge is increasingly irrelevant to the practice of medicine. We have smart phones for that. Critical thinking, team work, management, empathy, communication skills, moral character are much more important and almost impossible to test in any meaningful way.

 

The system is really crappy and denies a lot of people who would make fantastic doctors a chance to become one. I hate it but other than huge trials of alternative admission criteria that follow medical applicants from selection to retirement I can't think of any way to fix it.

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I still think that we should close the door to basically all IMGs. The training outside of Canada/US is too variable to broadly consider it adequate....

 

 

Nice and non-PC. I like it.

 

It's also very isolationist and closes the door to incorporating aspects of non-North American training that may be superior.

 

I remember reading 'an article' at one point showing that care in your own language improved clinical outcomes to a greater degree than most of the variation in clinical skill at issue here.

 

And while we're on this topic, why does the US get the universal ascent? They have fantastic medical training at some sites to be sure; but the range is huge and the medical system vastly different. There are some very weak American schools. I fear this exception is motivated by the potential benefits of reciprocity to Canadian physicians more than any altruism about physician standards.

 

And I'm not even going to touch the issue that interpersonal variation may be far more significant than intercollegiate. We don't dose pediatric medications by age or sex for a reason.

 

I really find the holier-then-though attitude Canadians have towards non-North American training puzzling in a country where 15-25% of the physician workforce are IMGs who have integrated very easily.

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