<p>I keep hearing about these two, and don't really know what the foreign medical schools are supposed to imply or mean. Are they easier to get into in general? Do you get to still practice medicine in the US if you graduate from a foreign medical school, where-ever they are that you guys are referring to (carribean and South America or something)? Do you get an M.D. or some other title?</p>
<p>Foreign medical school prepare their students to practice medicine in the country they are located in. Or in the case of EU schools, in any EU country. There are some schools which claim to follow an “American” medical curriculum and teach their classes in English. (They may or may not, not gonna debate that here.)</p>
<p>Some (many?) foreign medical schools are easier to gain admittance to than American med schools.</p>
<p>Graduates of foreign medical schools are not automatically allowed to practice medicine in the US. FMG (foreign medical graduates) must take and pass the USMLE Steps 1, 2 CK and 2 CS, then place into a US residency program to complete their training before they can practice in the US.</p>
<p>The USMLE pass rate for FMGs is low–less than 30-40% for each Step exam IRC. And only about 1/3 of those who pass all 3 are placed into US residency programs. FMGs are the last to be placed. All US med school graduates have priority over FMGs for residencies. Right now there are usually slots in primary care fields available but with 16 new US med schools either recently opened or opening in the next 5 years, the availability of those slots is going to decline.</p>
<p>The foreign medical schools most often discussed on CC are in the Caribbean. The most usual degree granted in foreign med schools is MBBS. AFAIK, none grant MDs (which seems to be a strictly American & Canadian degree).</p>
<p>Other nations do use the MD degree, but many use it as an advanced medical degree, usually research oriented (sort of like a PhD), while the standard professional degree is MBBS. Depends on the country though - there are a lot of different ways this is handled.</p>
<p>The caribbean schools do grant the MD degree. They teach to the american model and prepare specifically for the USMLE tests (some better than others) because they exist only to train US and Canadian citizens (granted, there are UK and Irish and others at these schools, but their primary purpose is to train US students who didn’t get into US schools).</p>
<p>The pass rate for students from non-US and non-canadian schools is actually around 73% (cite: [USMLE®</a> : Scores & Transcripts](<a href=“http://www.usmle.org/Scores_Transcripts/performance/2009.html]USMLE®”>http://www.usmle.org/Scores_Transcripts/performance/2009.html)) - this takes into account both US citizen caribbean students and non-citizen foreign grads, however.
Compare that to a pass rate of 95% for US MD schools.</p>
<p>What GPA and MCAT do you need to get into the Carribean schools?</p>