Choosing A Caribbean Medical School Over A Domestic Program

Pre-Med & Medical School Careers in Medicine
1

Hello aspiring physicians!

Many students are considering choosing a Caribbean Medical School as a backup, but more and more are choosing it knowing they will be doctors irrespective with their own practices practicing the wonders and virtues of medicine, healing, and wellness therapy. A big question that comes up is which one is the best. From an academic standpoint, there’s really no difference in terms of the quality of education. Most Caribbean Medical Schools have very high USMLE pass rates, in the low to upper 90’s, with a general 95% pass rate. Several factors you should consider in determining which Caribbean Medical School to go to is environment, tuition, expenses, and residency. Many Caribbean Medical Schools have excellent residency placement programs and clinical affiliations here in the US, but some also have clinical affiliations abroad. It all depends on where you want to be during your residency: here in the states, or living abroad. Most Caribbean Medical Students choose residency here in the US. Some schools have niche residency placement programs in certain regions of the US. For example, St. George’s has a very strong network in California and the West Coast, whereas Ross University has a very strong practicing network in New York. Again, all depends where you want to be. Other questions students ask is the quality of physician they will become. Many Caribbean Medical Schools graduate more than fit physicians, and a lot outcompete the USMLE scores of their US counter-parts. It all depends on how much you are investing in your education. The more you know, the better the physician you will be.

Floating among applying Caribbean Medical Students is “Which Ones Are Top”. Again, depends. St. George’s, AUC, and Ross were the pinnacle top choices twenty years ago when they used to explicitly term their admissions as “no-nonsense and wholistic”, giving more credit to a broad range of factors that determine how well of a physician you will be. However, things have changed since then, and they reversed their admissions policy, basing it on sole factors, such as MCAT & GPA, mirroring it to be more akin to a traditional US medical school admissions program, and angering many students who felt a sense of community and comfort knowing that all that really matters is your effort and input irrespective of your past academic performance. At one point of time, Ross abolished the MCAT in its entirety. However, things have changed from that realm of statistical consideration, and more and more students are choosing Caribbean Medical Schools that do not publish MCAT and GPA data and explicitly term their admissions as “no-nonsense and wholistic”, giving more credit and leverage to other factors that determine the quality of a physician and taking into consideration other factors that make a top physician.

Another factor: beaches. Which school has best beaches? All depends. Most have beautiful beaches, with the exception of Ross University and St. George’s, which are on giant rock islands with no natural beaches. In fact, St. George has a few artificial beaches, and Ross University has none (artificial or natural). Many students choose the beachy destinations with lots of tourists coming in, giving them a sense of comfort knowing during breaks, they can hop over to the local touristy spots, sip on a margarita, and chat with the incoming cruisers about how awesome living on a sandy Caribbean island during their medical education is. A hardship students who choose the rocky island destinations have is trouble coping with the loss of what they would have had on a beachy Caribbean island. You have to know what you want in order to get the most out of your choice. If all you want during breaks is knowing that you’re going to be a doctor, then you’ll have no problem on a deserted rock island with a good medical program. However, know that if you’re going to open your own practice, you’ll want the beachy Caribbean Island experience. A lot of doctors whow graduated from the rock in the sea school regret their decision years later when interacting with doctors who graduated from sandy beachy Caribbean destinations and who have no regrets about their decisions and don’t revisit and review their decisions years later with regret outcomes after.

Other factors you should consider: Employment. Most urban centers ban Caribbean Medical School Employment Applicants, with the exception of the East and West Coast. Even then, many on the East Coast and West Coast do not hire Caribbean Medical Students. If you’re looking to work for a hospital or a clinic, you might have a hard time getting a job. However, if you’re looking to open your own practice, you’ll be glad to know that you can. However, outside of the urban bureaucratic realm, you’ll have no problem working for a hospital. In fact a lot of rural areas prefer Caribbean Medical Students over domestic urban graduates and claim domestic graduates are difficult to work with, aren’t flexible enough, and perform worse. In short, if you’re looking to open your own practice in New York, Chicago, or LA, you’ll have no problem, but if you need to work to save up for your own practice, or just want to work for someone else your whole life without the worries of practice or clinic, you’ll have to move to a rural area or work to network within a clinic in a major urban center that bans Caribbean Medical School Employment Applicants.

In short, choosing a Caribbean Medical School over a Domestic Medical Program is lengthy and you have to take into consideration a lot of factors that could affect your mental health, wellness, and academic and career performance. However, know that becoming a doctor is a very rewarding experience irrespective of where you graduate from.

Open to questions if you have!

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I understood that Caribbean med schools admissions policies were primarily due to whether someone has a pulse and can write a check.

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No questions, but if you’re really in medical school, there is going to be little or no time to worry about how nice the beaches are.

And is it a good idea to attend one of these medical schools. In order to be a physician in the US, a new med school grad has to complete a residency. According to its official website the National Resident Match Program states

“Chart 3 shows the percentages of U.S. IMGs and non-U.S. IMGs who matched to their preferred specialty. Overall, 51.2
percent of U.S. IMGs matched to their preferred specialty, ranging from a high of 69.8 percent in Pediatrics to a low of
30.0 percent in Psychiatry. For non-U.S. IMGs, the overall match rate was 51.4 percent, ranging from a high of 66.7
percent in Pathology to a low of 15.0 percent in Orthopaedic Surgery. Match rates were higher for U.S. IMGs than
non-U.S. IMGs for all specialties except Child Neurology, Dermatology, Internal Medicine, Neurology, Pathology, and
Psychiatry. No U.S. IMG matched in Neurological Surgery or Vascular Surgery.”
There’s a 268 page report which breaks everything down; a guaranteed cure for insomnia.
https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Charting-Outcomes-in-the-Match-2018-IMGs.pdf

So a little over half US IMGs matched their preferred specialty. Seems like a pretty big risk after four years and a ton of money.

If you’ve got more questions, I’d recommend visiting student doctor network; they tend to be very blunt in their assessments.

4

Good point out OldLaw. That’s another factor you have to take into consideration. In terms of residency placement, medical residencies are very competitive. We would like to see preferred choice match rates of US graduates as well. From what I understand, even US graduates have hard times getting their first choice in residency. However, you’ll be glad to know that there have been neurosurgery and cardiovascular surgery residency appointments with Caribbean medical school graduates.

5

Yes, but those match rates for those residencies are much less than US medical schools.
And what about the attrition rate?; per the adcoms who post on SDN, the attrition rate at even the best Caribbean medical schools approaches 50%-while the attrtion rate at US medical schools is about 6%.

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Simply untrue. 74.4% of US med grads participating in the NRMP Match in 2020 matched to one the their top 3 ranked program in their specialty of choice. And 94.3% Matched. (Counting SOAP offers that number rose to close to 97%.)

For IMGs, only 54% Matched AT ALL to any program. And this only includes IMGs who summited a rank list. 176 did not because they received ZERO interviews.

https://www.ama-assn.org/residents-students/match/breaking-down-numbers-behind-match-process

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Correction to the above

This means that 2100 US IMGs did not submit a rank to the NRMP because they received ZERO interviews.

54% US IMGs who submitted a Match list matched. That’s only 2724 IMGs, or 38% of all US IMGs who registered for the Match.

Pretty crappy odds for someone with over $250K in students loans.

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So…
" A big question that comes up is which one is the best."
The answer(see above): it’s not even close; in every single instance it’s better for the aspiring physician to attend a US medical school.

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Thanks for your questions.

WayOutWestMom makes a good point. However, it’s important to note that 74% figure is a figure for the top three of their choice, not the first pick. When you read the same article, US IMG’s and US MG’s have almost the same top pick rate, at or very near 50%. That’s not to say that if you’re seeking a very competitive residency, you’ll of course want to opt for a very competitive medical program. However, if you like internal medicine, you’ll have no problem getting an internal medicine residency as a Caribbean medical graduate. Again, all depends on what you want. Not everybody likes the brain, the heart, or the extra stressloads associated with them, irrespective of mandatory workplace hour cutbacks.

Another good point pointed out was attrition rate. Attrition rates are substantially higher in Caribbean medical schools. However, that doesn’t automatically mean a student will fail simply just because. If you’re basing your success projection solely on attrition rates, you’ll want to stay with a domestic medical program to play it safe.

Here’s a residency placement list from a Caribbean Medical School in St. Maarten:

https://www.aucmed.edu/about/residency-placements/2018-residency-placements

Thanks for your questions and point outs!

Keep the ball rolling!

10

OP-- time to disclose who you are and why you are keeping this thread alive.

I think if you were to poll 99% of the students who attended a Caribbean Medical School in the last 20 years, 99% of them would tell you that they opted for their med school because they had NO OTHER OPTION.

Yes, there’s always an outlier. A student whose fiance is living abroad; a student who is an American citizen but who spent part of their childhood in that part of the world and may want to return to practice eventually.

But everyone else? They choose it because they had no choice.

Are you responsible for student recruitment for one of these schools?

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OP: after reviewing all the available data, it’s pellucid that it’s not even a close decision-if you get into a US medical school, there’s no need to consider or apply to, let alone attend, a Caribbean medical school.

There isn’t a single conceivable instance where anyone should attend a Caribbean school if they’ve been accepted at a US medical school.

If they don’t get in to a US medical school? Well, that’s still a dubious call, but that’s a different discussion. But I’d advise those considering such a move to visit SDN, where the discussions are, um, very direct.

12

While admittedly old data --it’s from 2013 (the last year NRMP/ECFMG published what countries IMGs came from. THE NRMP stopped publishing country of origin after certain Caribbean med schools filed formal complaints–not about the accuracy of the data, but because it was hurting their business…)

See p. 22

http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Charting-Outcomes-in-the-Match-IMG_Final_Revised.PDF-File.pdf 22

In 2013 Sint Maarten (where AUC is located) had 189 applicants who submitted ROLs to the NRP and only 120 matched. That’s 60% of those who submitted a ROL (which means they had at least one interview) but does not tell us anything about how many applied but did not submit a ROL because they received any interviews. (And which if the data in #6 is representative, then about 40% of those who applied received no interviews and didn’t submit a ROL.)

And the medical residency environment is more competitive today than it was in 2013.


I also looked at the map--no YOG is listed for any of those placements so there's no way to tell if all those are graduates from the 2019 class or from the combined classes from the last 5 or even 10 years.

IOW, it's bad (or at least very incomplete) data.
13

Hello! Everyone made some really good points. AUC isn’t the best medical school in the world, I think most students agree on that. Neither is Ross University or St. George’s. Even though they claim they have the most alumni practicing medicine in the world, that doesn’t mean their schools are the best. They have three admissions cycles throughout the year, so claiming they have the most alumni practicing medicine at their schools as first choice premier US medical school options is a far leap from the tuning fork’s hum. In fact, most people agree that Caribbean grads are a bit more miseried and lonely resultantly. However, if all else fails, and you’re near the brink, a Caribbean school will fare better than complete forfeiture. If you’re trying to grade Caribbean medical schools, be weary of the “Top Three” schemes. The top three schemes involve schools which advertise their schools as “US based curriculum” with scrutinous MCAT and GPA considerations. These schools do graduate students with stellar pass and residency rates, but the quality of life of their alumni is usually lower, reason being the moral and ethical considerations they struck out selling to them to graduate from a school most “similar” to US schools. However, important to note that many US schools don’t weigh heavily on MCAT and GPA alone like the “Top Three” in the Caribbean do. The “Top Three” in the Caribbean do because it’s a cheap fix to the liability question: “Will graduating alumni with sub-standard admission metrics affect the performance quality of their physicians?” Everyone knows the only thing that matters are USMLE scores.

Keep it coming folks!

14

@bayoun28

Are you a native English speaker because there are numerous usage, grammar and vocabulary errors in your post rendering it almost incomprehensible,

Also, you offer opinions but no substantiation of your claims that the St George and Ross produce lower quality grads and and physicians with low ethical and moral standards (which is a very serious accusation).

Lastly, FWIW, the NBME has announced that starting Jan. 2022, the USMLE Step 1 exam will be pass/fail. This means that the reputation of the undergrad medical school, the reputation/name recognition of a med student’s recommenders, the student’s performance during away/audition rotations and the productivity of a student’s medical school research will all become much, much more important for an IMG’s ability match into US residency.

15

Well, it looks like OP has substantially talked himself out of attending a Caribbean med school.
But let’s make it easy: every single US medical school, both allopathic and osteopathic, is a better choice than any Caribbean medical school.

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Hello!

Thanks for your replies! That’s a good point WayOutWestMom! Unfortunately, Ross University and AUC do have reputations for at whim hardship definition distortions, so if you do have a hardship, you’ll want to stay away from those to avoid multiple application fees. And if you don’t, you might also to avoid the stereotype of graduating from a semi-ripe international medical school that prides themselves on being a corporate diploma mill. In fact, I believe Ross University is owned by Devry Technical Institute, a midwestern technical school that guarantees their technical school graduates jobs, which they tout as being a supreme determining factor of whether or not you will succeed as a physician and have the pride of someone who graduated medical school from an Ivy League university and have the same associated academic social fame. Again, lots of decisions and factors you have to take into consideration. If you want the pride and prestige, an Ivy is the way to go. If you think you’ll never turn back and want it, then a caribbean school will fare well.

Thanks for your replies! Keep it coming!

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Bayoun- you are missing the point. The issue is not pride, prestige, “never turning back and wanting it”. There is not a single reason to choose a Caribbean med program if someone can get accepted to ANY American program. Not a single one. The Caribbean schools do NOT “fare well”- in fact, their statistics are terrible.

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Thanks for your replies! Good points. DO programs are stellar options when all else fails. However, if you want an MD degree, and all else fails, a caribbean school is a good choice and better than complete forfeiture and having to wing around with an an allied career that you’re not satisfied with. Thanks for your replies, and have a great day! And remember, good doctors come from hard work, dedication, and perseverance. You are what you dedicate yourself to!

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Good doctors come from hard work, dedication and perserverance for sure. But to practice medicine in the US there are some other, not insubstantial hoops to jump through. And your cheery posts for sure minimize the risks of a caribbean degree…