Year of graduation will be critical. As well as how recently an IMG has had any patient hands-on US clinical experience.
Knowledge and skills decay are huge issues for residency programs. They don’t have the time to help a intern get up to speed. Interns need to be able to hit the ground running.
If the YOG is 3 or more years from the residency start date, the application is likely to get auto-filtered out by the software PDs use to manage residency applications. This is applies equally to US med grads and IMGs.
IMGs really need a LOR from a practicing US physician who has supervised the applicant to have the best chance for a match.
Thanks @WayOutWestMom
How does she get hands on CE , since observership doesn’t allow hands on. Do we need to try externship ? Pls. suggest how to get those contacts for externship.
Sorry, I don’t have any for you. Her medical school does not participate in VSLO so that makes it infinitely more difficult for her to find a position.
At minimum, visiting students who wish to participate in hands on medical training need to have $1M in US malpractice insurance coverage. (This is true for US med students as well, but all US medical schools provide this coverage for their students on away rotations.)
Her best hope is to find an observership (which does not offer any hands on), or a clinical research position (which again does not offer an hands on). But either will allow her to get some familiarity with medicine as it’s practiced in the US and may allow her to get US LORs.
Has your daughter considered taking her STEP 3 exam?
If she just took step 1 in January this year, how was she planning to apply for 2021-22 match?
I dont know if 2023 match students will be considered pass/fail if they took the test too late in February 2022. My older daughter actually took it around this time in her third year after going through 2.5 semesters of rotations because thats when her school gave her time off. So it is possible some schools had students taking step 1 this late in third year.
Attended D2’s graduation from residency yesterday evening. I’m so glad I went. Since the number of residents per year in her specialty is small (only 6/each year), the program was able to honor each graduating senior in detail. Each resident was “presented” by a member of the faculty who highlighted each grad’s accomplishments, honors and future plans. Of the 6 graduating seniors, 5 are moving on to fellowship programs to subspecialize. The one who isn’t going to fellowship has accepted a full time academic faculty appointment. This is a very impressive group of young physicians!
And, I will admit it—I cried during D2’s presentation and during D2’s graduation speech.
My DD getting ready for the residency cycle. She told she will apply broadly and will be happy wherever she gets accepted. As a parent I will be happy if she gets into CA, preferably Bay Area so that I can visit often (when working from home in the new world). 8 months to March Madness.
@GoldenRock good luck to her as she applies, and hopefully gets lots of interviews. I hope you find some others here that are on this journey this year too. When our DD was applying for residency, there were five others here, and we still keep in touch several years later. We did a lot of messaging back and forth, and hand holding.
My SIL is starting his 4th year of Med School and prepping for residence interviews this winter as well. We are hoping he finds an internal medicine residency somewhere in the Midwest.
SIL is Canadian, and a student at RCSI in Dublin, Ireland. He is open to residency in both the US and Canada. He went to med school in Ireland because of the shortage of slots/high number of applicants in Canada. His undergrad is from a Canadian University.
Note: he has very good Step scores, top 10% class rank and 2 US observerships with 2 letters of recommendation.
RCSI is telling him that many interviews will be virtual this year due to Covid. Fingers crossed that this is true! It’s expensive to fly back to North America these days.
I know one of your Ds classmates from Houston who is also applying for same.
I think it is possible if the goal is just to come to Cal. Getting interviews at some of the top programs is a little bit harder. Lately I am surprised how strong her home program is based on the IM recruits they seem to be getting (lots of top schools represented). Btw, this summer has been brutal!
There are specific programs that like IMGs in US. I am sure there is a list maintained somewhere on SDN. Lot of our friends kids in Houston who went to med school in India ended up in Shreveport, LA. I see a lot of IMGs on Texas Tech residency list. Cook county hospital in Chicago is quite popular and same with some hospitals in Bronx (?). I remember reading about the hospital in cutting for stone.
If your SIL is involved in research, I have seen places like Mayo and Cleveland clinic having IMGs.
Info Qs: Based on last year reality (for Internal Medicine),
When does the interview notifications started coming out ?
When does the interview starts (assume there is some 1 or 2 weeks from notification to interview dates).
How critical AOA - another criteria among n factors or it carries good weightage?
Any other tips or points we need to be aware and be prepared?
Taking a known risk due to family situation and she will be in Asia doing a 4 weeks rotation and another 2 weeks outside USA and will be back on Nov 7. Being virtual interview, off hours need to take if it happens. Created a mail account just for residency and close friends and family will monitor in Oct for interview notification. She got pretty decent step 1 & 2 scores (which came today).
