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My son has a friend who's studying at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin. He's just starting his third year and is totally immersed in medicine. A very, very different approach from the American system. His parents are (politely) astonished when I describe my son's US liberal arts education.
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That's the way all medical courses are over here. The medical course at my college (University College Dublin) is even in the process of changing to a 5-year course (in line with the UK). I think Trinity and RCSI are still 6 years though.</p>
<p>Without wanting to be discouraging, many Europeans finish high school with more rigorous general educations than is typical of the US. I don't know about Ireland.</p>
<p>Actually the boy involved went to an international highschool in Asia with my son. They received an identical IB based education -- although my son focused more on humanities and the other boy on sciences. He chose Dublin because he wanted an English language based curriculum, but his heritage is half Asian, half Northern European.</p>
<p>The point is that while my son at his LAC is studying art, literature, religion, geology etc, etc. and just beginning to think about what he'll be when he grows up, his friend is neckdeep in medicine. When we saw him over the summer he already had his own stethoscope and knee hammer thing-y. </p>
<p>It's just a very different educational philosophy.</p>
<p>another point re: medical schools - the Pre-Med/Health Professions advisor at my college recently said that many med schools are looking VERY favorably upon applicants who are older and have more life exp. and are not straight out of college.
Something to consider.</p>
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Without wanting to be discouraging, many Europeans finish high school with more rigorous general educations than is typical of the US. I don't know about Ireland.
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We <em>do</em> get a very general education. Most of us will do 7 subjects for Leaving Certificate. For practically everyone, this includes English, Irish and maths. Most do at least one science (erm, I did 3...) and a foreign language (I did French).</p>
<p>Rainbow, I know a lot of people in Ireland and many of them wish they had had a chance for further exploration of many subjects on the university level, as we do. Here students also do many subjects in high school (before the leaving cert), including multiple sciences and one or more foreign languages. But at least your doctors don't start working in their mid-30s with a massive debt. ;)</p>
<p>My d doesn't even like the U.S. system, thinks even it requires premed courses too early.</p>
<p>If you take a medicine course abroad, it may not qualify you to practice medicine in the US. At the very least I suspect you will have to take some further tests. I know this is the case for people who qualify in the UK.</p>
<p>The real problem comes if you do your clinical training overseas. It may not count at all in the US. Many foreign-trained docs have to do residencies again when they come to the US.</p>