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Nigerian International medical student at uoft asks for $92,000 on Gofundme (currently at $124,000)


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26 minutes ago, hamsterman11 said:

some doctors really make it into medecine just for the money

from my experience after talking to some experienced doctors, most people who are in it for the money either: 1) drop med school after 1-2 years (sometimes 3) for a more lucrative degree (most choose business/finances/law), 2) decide to stay but are burnt out towards residency (and resent their career choice, but unable to quit because they've put far too much effort into graduating med school), 3) experience fatigue and lose motivation to stay updated post-residency and provide subpar care for their patients in practice to maximize patient volume (ex: abusive referrals, questionable billing practices, etc.). That said, there are still a LOT of people who were in it for the money at first, but started to love the clinical side of things and are generally happy with their choice - but it's important to note that these people eventually realized that they're better off forgetting about wealth if they wanna stay in medicine.

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36 minutes ago, TortueGeniale said:

For those who do not know, before granting you a student visa, the immigration services require (extensive) funding proof for the entire duration of the studies. And that money has to be wired in its entirety to a Canadian bank before the student even sets foot in Canada...

Interesting. So it's possible that she's just making such a sob story to gain sympathy despite having all the money to pay for this? That's indeed terrible and extremely unethical if true.

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7 minutes ago, helpmeplz said:

Interesting. So it's possible that she's just making such a sob story to gain sympathy despite having all the money to pay for this? That's indeed terrible and extremely unethical if true.

the info is available here, in the proof of financial support section:

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/study-canada/study-permit/get-documents.html#doc3

Ask any international student around you and they’ll confirm

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8 minutes ago, helpmeplz said:

Interesting. So it's possible that she's just making such a sob story to gain sympathy despite having all the money to pay for this? That's indeed terrible and extremely unethical if true.

No that isn't true. International students have to show proof of first year's tuition plus proof of living expenses. For her, she would have had to show approximately $35000-$40000 cash available to secure coming to Canada for medical school. 

There is a lot of privilege spewing from this thread.

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14 minutes ago, anon12345 said:

No that isn't true. International students have to show proof of first year's tuition plus proof of living expenses. For her, she would have had to show approximately $35000-$40000 cash available to secure coming to Canada for medical school. 

There is a lot of privilege spewing from this thread.

Following your argument, look here the first year tuition fees at UofT for medicine:

https://md.utoronto.ca/current-fees

The 35-40k estimate you gave is not correct.

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35 minutes ago, TortueGeniale said:

Following your argument, look here the first year tuition fees at UofT for medicine:

https://md.utoronto.ca/current-fees

The 35-40k estimate you gave is not correct. 

You are right. I didn't actually check the international rate at U of T. That being said, my point still stands that they only had to show the first year tuition and not the complete tuition amount. 

Most international students will show more because it increases their chances of approval, but for medicine, I think immigration canada has lower thresholds. 

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4 minutes ago, anon12345 said:

You are right. I didn't actually check the international rate at U of T. That being said, my point still stands that they only had to show the first year tuition and not the complete tuition amount. 

Most international students will show more because it increases their chances of approval, but for medicine, I think immigration canada has lower thresholds. 

Check Sorrynotsorry answer up there for more information. I too, went through the same process some time ago (when the requirements were stricter) and was denied a study permit 5 times because my family was not able to show they had the funds to support me for the entirety of my study program. CIC has no lower threshold for medicine, I can assure you and again check their website. I am very familiar with the process.

I am not saying she is lying or not lying. Many on the forum were born in Canada, have never dealt with CIC and are not familiar with how it goes. I just want to give people the right information and they will decide what to do with it. 

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According to this document from Immigration Canada, you only need proof of finances for 1 year. Some people may have had different experiences with the government but it’s definitely within the realm of possibility that she was only required to have proof of finances for 1 year.

Like others have commented earlier, I don’t fully understand what the big deal is. A medical student ran into financial issues, created a Gofundme page explaining her situation and received help from those who were willing and able to. As a domestic student, I’ve done the same exact thing when applying for scholarships and bursaries, where I’ve written letters explaining my financial need and asked for money from donors. I’ve been extremely blessed to have received money from people who were willing and able to support my education. I have never been questioned about my integrity and intentions and I’m not sure why we’re treating this international student any different. 

https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/kits/forms/IMM5826E.pdf

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At the end of the day people that were compelled by her story (my self included) to help her out were offering their own money to support her. Sites such as GoFundMe exist for that very reason. Simply put, if you don't agree, you don't have to donate. If you would like to help, then go ahead. If you're in the situation to help someone out then sometimes it just feels good to do so. No one was hurt and no one was done wrong by and thus there really is no problem. 

This really is a 'let her get hers and you go get yours' type of situation. I'm happy for her. This must have relieved a lot of stress during a time where things really are uncertain.

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42 minutes ago, Ddx said:

According to this document from Immigration Canada, you only need proof of finances for 1 year. Some people may have had different experiences with the government but it’s definitely within the realm of possibility that she was only required to have proof of finances for 1 year.


https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/kits/forms/IMM5826E.pdf

Quoting the student:

" I currently have outstanding fees from last school year and this semester, and will be forced to take a leave of absence if I do not make a minimum payment of $89,376 by this Friday (December 11th, 2020). Taking a leave of absence is very complicated because of my study permit restrictions." 

She is currently MS2. Does that imply that she did not have sufficient funds to cover her first year tuition, which as Ddx and many others have pointed out should have been a minimal requirement for a student permit in the first place? 

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15 minutes ago, FingersCrossedPls said:

At the end of the day people that were compelled by her story (my self included) to help her out were offering their own money to support her. Sites such as GoFundMe exist for that very reason. Simply put, if you don't agree, you don't have to donate. If you would like to help, then go ahead. If you're in the situation to help someone out then sometimes it just feels good to do so. No one was hurt and no one was done wrong by and thus there really is no problem. 

This really is a 'let her get hers and you go get yours' type of situation. I'm happy for her. This must have relieved a lot of stress during a time where things really are uncertain.

I agree with you on this one. People decide what to do with their own money and they did. No one on this forum has the ability to take away others' freedom to decide how they want to spend their money or who they would like to help. I don't think people should be shamed for speaking, as long as they keep it respectful. 

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4 hours ago, keipop said:

from my experience after talking to some experienced doctors, most people who are in it for the money either: 1) drop med school after 1-2 years (sometimes 3) for a more lucrative degree (most choose business/finances/law), 2) decide to stay but are burnt out towards residency (and resent their career choice, but unable to quit because they've put far too much effort into graduating med school), 3) experience fatigue and lose motivation to stay updated post-residency and provide subpar care for their patients in practice to maximize patient volume (ex: abusive referrals, questionable billing practices, etc.). That said, there are still a LOT of people who were in it for the money at first, but started to love the clinical side of things and are generally happy with their choice - but it's important to note that these people eventually realized that they're better off forgetting about wealth if they wanna stay in medicine.

I see this said over and over again where everyone assumes oh its just so easy to get a +$250k job in tech/law/finance. The percentage of people in those jobs is so small and is probably more competitive than getting into med school. Also realize the people that are in those jobs are constantly worried about losing their jobs to younger talent and a bad market. Most people will not hold those positions for the rest of their careers and will have to take on a more regular paying job at some point. Medicine is pretty reliable where just following the well beaten path is enough to get you into the 1%. Realize that the 1% is a revolving door and the vast majority of people only stay in the 1% for a few years. Physicians are unique where you stay there for most of your career. You can certainly become wealthy as a physician.

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On 12/11/2020 at 6:10 PM, MasterDoc said:

I see this said over and over again where everyone assumes oh its just so easy to get a +$250k job in tech/law/finance. The percentage of people in those jobs is so small and is probably more competitive than getting into med school. Also realize the people that are in those jobs are constantly worried about losing their jobs to younger talent and a bad market. Most people will not hold those positions for the rest of their careers and will have to take on a more regular paying job at some point. Medicine is pretty reliable where just following the well beaten path is enough to get you into the 1%. Realize that the 1% is a revolving door and the vast majority of people only stay in the 1% for a few years. Physicians are unique where you stay there for most of your career. You can certainly become wealthy as a physician.

Also want to really reinforce that those jobs in finance are often fragile - they are vulnerable to market forces. People come and people go. Jobs in tech would rarely reach those levels and when they do again very fragile. Law practice isn't as automatic as medicine is either - you have to build your practice and have a long route to partner. In many places law is also very saturated. 

I believe stats can defines it as income (in 2018) above 244,800 although that number for doctors can also be misleading.  For instance we usually don't take all our income out of our corporation in most cases as we need some vehicle for saving for retirement/parental leave/retraining etc. also we are a business so we are subject to some market forces as well - like right now where many doctors have seen their income slashed quite a bit. 

Doctors do have quite a late start, and often significant debit to repay once they start but there is no question it is a good income etc. 

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On 12/9/2020 at 5:38 PM, Med2050 said:

It is interesting that someone brought this up. First I want to be clear that, I completely agree with everyone that Noroh has a very valid reason to ask for and receive help (I personally pitched in a little). As someone coming from a marginalized background, I feel her pain and I’m so grateful that most people that I have encountered so far have been incredibly positive and supportive.

On that note, I do have one hypothetical question. This is mostly out of curiosity and please let me know if it is inappropriate. I am asking also because I do have friends and family back home (in a third world country that could only dream about the opportunity to study medicine in Canada but couldn’t due to financial reasons :(

If the student in this case, was of East Asian or Middle Eastern decent (international students coming from these regions have traditionally been associated with wealth, tho certainly not all of them are), do you think they would have received the same amount of attention and help?

 

I have to agree with this that there are political agendas which may have made donating to Noroh seem like a better idea this year than say a couple years ago. She is an international student and should be expected to pay those fees upon admission. There are medical schools in her own home country yet she had the privilege to study abroad and pay international fees. This is a privilege. She was unable to pay her tuition and then came to Canadians to ask for their money. Where is the financial support from her home country of Nigeria? 

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On 12/8/2020 at 8:43 AM, mohammad said:

Domestic tuition is less because of the subsidies. She is an international student who has not contributed which leads to no subsidies and paying the upfront cost of medical school. 

exactly - there is no real tax argument here. Well except that if she cannot continue then we just wasted a spot etc at the university which is obviously not effective use of resources in general. Any argument about using home country loans or government assistance may philosophically make sense to some although on a practical level it is really not an option. 

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1 hour ago, mohammad said:

I have to agree with this that there are political agendas which may have made donating to Noroh seem like a better idea this year than say a couple years ago. She is an international student and should be expected to pay those fees upon admission. There are medical schools in her own home country yet she had the privilege to study abroad and pay international fees. This is a privilege. She was unable to pay her tuition and then came to Canadians to ask for their money. Where is the financial support from her home country of Nigeria? 

They might not have the same financial support system in Nigeria. I have to say as a first generation immigrant myself, the world is not created equal. 

It makes sense that Noroh was able to raise the funds so quickly - the right time, the right reason, and the right people.  

Whether this should be encouraged is a bit more complicated. Simply put, there are too many excellent students in need on this planet and we just don’t have the recourses to help them all. Noroh is the lucky one. I still think her case is valid on a personal level, that is as long as she was being honest with her financial situation.

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16 hours ago, Med2050 said:

They might not have the same financial support system in Nigeria. I have to say as a first generation immigrant myself, the world is not created equal. 

It makes sense that Noroh was able to raise the funds so quickly - the right time, the right reason, and the right people.  

Whether this should be encouraged is a bit more complicated. Simply put, there are too many excellent students in need on this planet and we just don’t have the recourses to help them all. Noroh is the lucky one. I still think her case is valid on a personal level, that is as long as she was being honest with her financial situation.

image.thumb.png.7852896885da509f5bc5646394eb7016.png

This comic comes to mind........

 

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15 minutes ago, blah1234 said:

Will she even quality for CaRMS as she is on a student visa? I thought you have to be a PR or a Canadian citizen. I feel like that's a bigger upcoming hurdle because the degree won't be worth much if she can't finish her training.

She will have to do residency in the U.S.  So assumingely she has been working on the USMLES.   Her family has to be reasonably well off to take the risk(at least above middle class back home, if not further up), to have sent her to Canada at 16 to pursue education.   Not to mention, it's not like Nigeria doesn't have some excellent medical schools (having worked closely with more than a handful of nigerian physicians). 

Either way, great for her to have gotten the tremendous funding/sponsorship to help her through.  I personally don't see the rationale for having these few international seats at medical schools, if there isn't a clear pathway for them to apply for  a Canadian residency training position and stay in Canada. Again, unless i'm missing something crucial here, there is not a clear pathway directly into CaRMS for her. The only possibility is if her family had put in the paperwork to immigrate to Canada to gain PR for themselves a number of years ago, and just waiting in the queue to gain PR shortly. If this is the case, then hopefully it is done by the time she hits 4th year so she can apply to CaRMS. Otherwise she will be spending time doing a gap year masters, or leaving for the US NRMP match.

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2 hours ago, medicallyricalmiracle said:

i agree that anyone who signs up to go to school as an international student should 100% be able to pay their way through school. in her biography she explains that her family planned to sell their home to pay the rest of the tuition fees. this seems a tad risky; why start a program when you're not 100% sure you can finish?

although, i have to say, part of me smirks whenever someone "games" the system. canadian/american student visas for medical students are exclusive to the uber-wealthy (like, they lease $200000 cars to drive 5 minutes to campus type of rich). in this case she had exactly enough money in her account to prove she "could" pay for first year (who knows, maybe it was borrowed money that was returned to the source after the financial assessment period) and worked her tail off during school to justify asking the public for help. 

i do hope she was actually acting in good faith, and didn't plan this all along. but damn, it would be a genius (albeit risky) play...

Gives new meaning to the pop-culture "Nigerian prince" scam.    

I'm doubtful much of the conspiracy theory comment you're providing is true, but i think it's important to note that the fact that she was able to get a student visa in the first place, is a testament that she was well-off enough on paper to be able to make that jump.  Poor students aren't necessarily making it through all the hoops to land a coveted student visa like that.   There may be an element of lack of due diligence on behalf of the Canadian medical school as well, assuming that the gov't screening process and financial requirements were robust enough, that they didn't have to do their simple due diligence to check if the matriculant could actually even afford all 4 years. So, with that said, I would give you some benefit that perhaps there may* be some merit to your argument.  

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5 hours ago, JohnGrisham said:

She will have to do residency in the U.S.  So assumingely she has been working on the USMLES.   Her family has to be reasonably well off to take the risk(at least above middle class back home, if not further up), to have sent her to Canada at 16 to pursue education.   Not to mention, it's not like Nigeria doesn't have some excellent medical schools (having worked closely with more than a handful of nigerian physicians). 

Either way, great for her to have gotten the tremendous funding/sponsorship to help her through.  I personally don't see the rationale for having these few international seats at medical schools, if there isn't a clear pathway for them to apply for  a Canadian residency training position and stay in Canada. Again, unless i'm missing something crucial here, there is not a clear pathway directly into CaRMS for her. The only possibility is if her family had put in the paperwork to immigrate to Canada to gain PR for themselves a number of years ago, and just waiting in the queue to gain PR shortly. If this is the case, then hopefully it is done by the time she hits 4th year so she can apply to CaRMS. Otherwise she will be spending time doing a gap year masters, or leaving for the US NRMP match.

Exactly, I hope her family or the school has realized this. Too many people think that finishing medical school is enough when it's just the start of the journey.

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1 hour ago, blah1234 said:

Exactly, I hope her family or the school has realized this. Too many people think that finishing medical school is enough when it's just the start of the journey.

Unfortunately, the system here(and in most places) is usually too idealistic to think a few steps ahead. Administrators aren't generally significantly forward thinking - just the nature of the work to focus on tasks at hand, without much big picture planning.

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36 minutes ago, JohnGrisham said:

Unfortunately, the system here(and in most places) is usually too idealistic to think a few steps ahead. Administrators aren't generally significantly forward thinking - just the nature of the work to focus on tasks at hand, without much big picture planning.

 

Yea, I would be surprised if the school was proactive regarding this as it's still years away in their eyes.

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