Interesting Read

[yesmedyes]

Not sure if this has been posted here before, but I came across this blog of a US premed who decided to go to the Caribbean. (I am in no way saying this is all true or false, I am just putting it out here for people to read)

 

https://milliondollarmistake.wordpress.com/

[JohnGrisham]

Cant comment if the story is true or not, it could very well be true - and if so, that saddest part is, had they been a USMD/USDO they would have for sure gotten into an ortho residency, and probably even a top one.

Talk about change in career trajectory

[shikimate]

A very unfortunate case if that's what happened. I wonder with some leftover 2nd round CaRMS ortho spots in Canada the author would be courageous enough to try once more. 

 

PS I found this number interesting, it says this year 241 CSA matched in CaRMS, yet their report from 2010 says there are ~3500 CSA studying abroad in all years, so that's a lot of CSAs who didn't match in CaRMS. I sincerely hope many of them matched in NRMP.

 

http://www.carms.ca/en/data-and-reports/2015-r-1-highlights/

[ralk]

Not sure if this has been posted here before, but I came across this blog of a US premed who decided to go to the Caribbean. (I am in no way saying this is all true or false, I am just putting it out here for people to read)

 

https://milliondollarmistake.wordpress.com/

 

Thanks for sharing - I've seen a few others like this floating around, they're a good counterpoint to the success stories from the Caribbean which get featured a bit more prominently. Kind of understandable, since people publicize their success a lot more than their failures.

 

It's worth mentioning that this person's stats going into medicine in the US weren't as great as he implies. A 3.75 GPA/~28 MCAT combo really does mean limited options. If he were applying to Ontario schools, he'd get rejected pre-interview from pretty much every school. He got into a DO school and in retrospect, really should have taken it, even with the year-delay - Gohan's right, with his Step scores and overall performance in Med School, he'd almost certainly have gotten an Ortho residency.

 

Ironically, this guy actually had a "successful" Caribbean experience. He doesn't say it explicitly, but it sounds like he matched to an American program (probably Internal from his comments). Goes to show that the touted successes by the Caribbean schools aren't always successes by their students' standards.

[Edict]

Solid read. I'm learning a lot about the Caribbean schools that you just wouldn't know unless you went. 

[JohnGrisham]

Do note that the guys american, and even with those stats he could have improved and gotten into schools with a re-app. Not to mention the USDO acceptance in hand. My guess is, he was just one of the statistics that got unlucky with their first app and/or had poor writing skills, somewhat weak or plain Jane ECS.

 

But yeah, killer medical school performance but as they said, their clinical exposure was weak due to their school shafting them- but they made the best of it, with what they could. I'd say though, from their description they implied even them self that their honor scores werent the same as an amg who had solid clinical exposures. Yes his shelf exams were top percentile for his rotations, but the clinical evaluation components were based on meh experiences as they described.(kind of like getting an A in a biology class meant for arts students vs a class meant for genetics majors). Probably still a minor factor though, still sucks that they didn't get to follow their path.

 

I hope they didn't have notions of inferiority when they picked the carrib MD over DO, because that sting of losing their dream career due to that will stick with them for life if it was a conscious decision. Doesn't seem that way, and it was a time thing, not wanting to wait a year, but never know.

[indefatigable]

.

[Edict]

Do note that the guys american, and even with those stats he could have improved and gotten into schools with a re-app. Not to mention the USDO acceptance in hand. My guess is, he was just one of the statistics that got unlucky with their first app and/or had poor writing skills, somewhat weak or plain Jane ECS.

 

But yeah, killer medical school performance but as they said, their clinical exposure was weak due to their school shafting them- but they made the best of it, with what they could. I'd say though, from their description they implied even them self that their honor scores werent the same as an amg who had solid clinical exposures. Yes his shelf exams were top percentile for his rotations, but the clinical evaluation components were based on meh experiences as they described.(kind of like getting an A in a biology class meant for arts students vs a class meant for genetics majors). Probably still a minor factor though, still sucks that they didn't get to follow their path.

 

I hope they didn't have notions of inferiority when they picked the carrib MD over DO, because that sting of losing their dream career due to that will stick with them for life if it was a conscious decision. Doesn't seem that way, and it was a time thing, not wanting to wait a year, but never know.

 

He did say he had a lot of clinical experience and didn't he take a gap year? He didn't receive too many interviews either, i wonder what happened, maybe he's an ORM or probably just got unlucky.

 

Anyways he has my sympathies, i can definitely understand what its like having an unresponsive faculty although his case is really bad.

 

It sort of confirms all of what I thought the Caribbean would be. After all, they are for profit schools which means they are trying to get away with doing as little as possible, which usually means cutting corners.

 

His DO acceptance was a deferred one which probably was part of the reason he ended up choosing the Caribbean. That and he bought the Caribbean school propaganda lock, stock and barrel. With 300k, 4 years of your life sort of decisions never fully trust a representative of a for profit school. They are essentially a sales rep. You really need to get all the perspectives, no one is fully unbiased but asking from all sorts of people will give you a better view.

[shikimate]

He mentioned a big factor in his decision was talking to the alumni; while I think it's probable that the alumni was honest to the best of his knowledge, the author also mentioned his lack of NRMP data at that time. I think a lesson for future applicants would be to investigate the data further, and talk to multiple students or alumni if possible. I think in his case one can understand how frustrated he was at that time and how eager he was to just get on and get going; on the other hand I think many premed, M1, M2 or even M3 doesn`t get to appreciate how CaRMS or NRMP is this one time phenomena that can dictate your life forever. It`s a lesson that no matter how prepared one can be, every year CaRMS and NRMP will throw a few knuckle-balls.