Hey, Everyone, I am looking for admission in medical college one of my friend suggested me to take admission in All Saints University Saint Vincent. Can anyone give me reviews about this university or suggest to me other universities?
@shanelowney
Are you a US citizen or permanent resident?
Where you plan to practice medicine after graduation?
All Saints University Saint Vincent is a new Caribbean medical school that offers 4 and 5 year entry programs. This school is BIG unknown. Although All Saint University School of Medicine was founded in 2006, the St. Vincent and the Grenadines was cleaved off from the main university campus in 2019. This makes this schools a BIG unknown with no track record.
WARNING: All Saints University College of Medicine is not accredited by the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAMHP)
Caribbean med schools are all for-profit institutions and their business model relies on a large percentage of their incoming students to fail out/quit before those students reach the clinical portion of their medical education. Why? Because these schools simply do not have sufficient resources or placements to accommodate all their students.
Caribbean students face very long odds of matching back to the US or Canada. Fewer than 40% do. Grads of foreign medical schools need much higher USMLE scores than do US grads to be considered for same residency programs because many PDs simply filter out all applications from non-US program graduates. Grads from foreign medical schools tend to end up in chiefly FM, IM or pathology in less desirable locations (medically underserved rural and inner city residency programs).
Before deciding to attend I would suggest you do some research since not all foreign
medical schools are recognized and you may not be able to get a medical license in the US.
- Check the List of approved schools by the Medical Board of California to see if your school—and the campus you plan to attend-- is recognized. Also check the Texas Medical Board List of Schools Whose Graduates Have Demonstrated
Substantial Equivalence of Their Education
https://www.mbc.ca.gov/Applicants/Medical_Schools/Schools_Recognized.aspx
http://www.tmb.state.tx.us/idl/A9AFA127-082F-6C6D-1421-B5BEDB9C3E02
Unless your school is on this list chances are you won’t be eligible for a medical license in most states.
{NOTE: I can’t find this school listed on either the CA or TX approved list, but you should check for yourself.}
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Ask the school to show you their USMLE pass rate for US citizens for past 5 years. In order to be eligible to participate in the federal student loan program, foreign medical schools must collect this data and forward it to the US Dept of Education. If your school won’t share this information with you or says it doesn’t have this information–this should be a red flag.
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Ask the school to show you its Match List of US citizen graduates for the last 3-5 years. Again if the school refuses to do so or says it doesn’t have this information–this a major red flag. It’s a sign this school is NOT successful sending its grads back to the US for residency.
And some educational reading–
https://www.ecfmg.org/resources/guidance-on-medical-school-selection.html
https://www.iwnsvg.com/2018/04/26/university-denies-forcing-student-to-leave-svg-for-dominica/
https://www.idealmedicalcare.org/ugly-truth-caribbean-medical-schools/
The general advice given to pre-meds is that they should complete 3 application cycles to US MD and DO schools, with time allowed between each application cycle to improve their app, before attempting to attend med school in the Caribbean. Hey, @WayOutWestMom thanks for sharing your recommendation.
I am a citizen of Nigeria.
As you said about “All Saints University Saint Vincent” that this university has no " Accreditation" but I listen to totally different about this university. One of my friends join this university and I discussed the Universities Accreditation as you concerned me but he said to me that the University has Accreditation.
I also visited the university site and I found that “All Saints University of Medicine, Saints Vincent and the Grenadines (ASU SVG) is recognized by FAIMER and listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools (WDOMS). Our students and graduates are therefore eligible to apply to the ECFMG for ECFMG Certification and the United States Medical Licensing Examinations (USMLE) as a step towards ECFMG Certification.”
And my friend discussed with me that this university has the number of students who start their successful careers after study from this university.
And I also found that a lot of students and my knowns are taking admission in this university of session 2020.
There are 2 types of accreditation a foreign medical school must meet for its graduates to be eligible to work in the US.
- It must be ECFMG approved.
The ECFMG does not review a medical school’s curriculum to see if it meets any type of national/international standard. It just checks to make sure the school has a physical site, has a staff and offers some sort of clinical training. The vetting is extremely minimal and mostly geared toward making sure the school isn’t a diploma mill. (That is a school the sells diplomas without offering the required training or classes.) ECFMG-approval does not mean that the education offered by a school is of high quality or that it will accepted everywhere in world.
- The school must be approved by the Medical Board of the state where the graduate works.
All physicians are required to hold a valid medical license for the state in which they work. No license = no job. Medical graduates cannot begin their residency without a valid medical license. If school is not on the approved list, then the graduates will never be able to get a medical license. End of story.
All Saints in St Vincent used to be one campus of larger medical school-- All Saints College of Medicine in Dominica. in 2019, the St Vincent campus was sold to a new owner and became an independent school separate from All Saints University in Dominica. This change in status means that the St Vincent school specifically must be listed on the medical board approved list.
Currently, neither All Saints School of Medicine in Dominica nor All Saints School of Medicine in St. Vincent are on the approved list for the state of TX or California (and therefore are not approved by the other 35 states which use the lists from TX or CA as their basis for issuing a license.)
All Saints-Dominica had been previously been on the CA approved list, but was removed several years ago. All Saints has never been on the TX approvedl list.
You are certainly free to check the individual Medical Boards for all 50 states and Puerto Rico to see if ASU-St, Vincents is on their approved list for medical education.
It is certainly possible that graduates from All Saints have gone on to successful careers and have become doctors. Just not in the US–at least not recently.
If your goal is become a doctor practicing medicine in the US, attending this school will not get you there.