<p>I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I'm in my last HS year, thinking about studying medicine in University of Buenos Aires. Here it lasts 7 years (it's like you have pre-med and med school combined).</p>
<p>Now, I'm pretty sure I want to move to America eventually. Assuming I pass the USMLE with no problem, I was wondering if I would be looked down once I got there. Could I do my residency in America instead of here coming from a foreign university?</p>
<p>Moreover, what I would really like to do is medical research. Do you think I could be accepted in a good PhD program coming from a foreign university?</p>
<p>Maybe I should try to get in an American pre-Med college, but I see that as nearly impossible (I don't have the money to pay it, my stats are average because here they don't matter to go to college, etc).</p>
<p>Thank you in advance, and sorry if this isn't the right subforum.</p>
<p>You are eligible for a residency, definitely! I’d advise you check out this thread, I posted a buncha resources that you might want to check out:
<a href=“http://www.nrmp.org/”>http://www.nrmp.org/</a>
<a href=“SOAP | NRMP”>http://www.nrmp.org/residency/soap/</a>
<a href=“http://www.nrmp.org/residency/i-am-not-a-us-allopathic-senior/”>http://www.nrmp.org/residency/i-am-not-a-us-allopathic-senior/</a>
Are you familiar with the resident Match program?</p>
<p>It will not be ideal to be a Foreign Medical Graduate. Residencies in primary care will be easier for you to pursue but the non-medicine specialties will be very difficult! It’s been that way since the 80s from what I’ve heard and I’ve witnessed it in the 90s.</p>
<p>In order to practice medicine and get a medical license in the US , you will be required to complete a medical residency in the US. The process for qualifying and registering to the US medical residency match is handled by the ECFMG.</p>
<p>Here’s the website:
<a href=“http://www.ecfmg.org”>http://www.ecfmg.org</a></p>
<p>You will be able to read about the process there.</p>
<p>It’s is becoming increasingly difficult for international med graduates to match into US medical residencies since starting in 2015, the number of US medical grads will be equal to or exceed the number of available medical residencies. In the past year, fewer than 45% of all international match applicants were placed into a residency. Most of the matches were into primary care fields.</p>
<p>For acceptance into a PhD program, you will need to have extensive research experience (ideally you should have publications from your research) with supporting letters of recommendation from the PI of your lab as well as strong grades in your upper level scores science coursework.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>While it’s possible for you to come to US and study pre-med, it’s extraordinarily difficult for internationals to gain admission into a US medical school. Only ~30 US allopathic medical schools will consider internationals for admission. Of those 30, only 4 or 5 offer any kind of financial aid (including loans) to internationals. (That handful are among the most competitive schools to gain admission to in the US.) For the rest of the schools, you will need to demonstrate you have the funds to pay for medical school before you will be allowed to matriculate. This means producing a letter of guarantee from your home government or depositing 1-4 years worth of tuition & fees (and some schools also require livings expenses) into an escrow account.</p>
<p>All in all, fewer than 200 internationals matriculate into all US medical schools in any given year. (And <90% of those are Canadian since the Canadian government offers loans to its citizens attending US med schools.) Over the past decade the number of internationals enrolling in US med school have ranged from 46-198. </p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/321462/data/2012factstable4.pdf”>https://www.aamc.org/download/321462/data/2012factstable4.pdf</a></p>
<p>MD/PhD programs that are funded by the US government (e.g. MSTP programs) are prohibited from considering internationals for admission. There are a few schools that use funding from other sources to fund MD/PhD students and those may consider international students for admission. </p>