Wouldn’t those options all be quite expensive? You’d be paying non-EU fees at the Royal College of Surgeons (currently about 52,000 Euros a year), since you wouldn’t meet the residency requirement for free or EU fees after a 4-year stint in the US. The program in Poland currently charges about 15,000 Euros a year.
What about nursing or bio-behavioral health or kinesiology or movement science, all of which are medicine-related and would offer a good preparation for any type of health studies?
@b@r!um
Oh, I was not aware of their residency requirements for EU students, good that you played attention to it.
The program in Poland is comparably cheap in comparison to the US, but still expensive. I don’t think there’s anything cheaper, however.
@MYOS1634
(Except for nursing :D) These are all good options. I was thinking about Biomedical Sciences, but where should I study these subjects?
Would you be a good candidate for admission to an Irish undergraduate medical program? That’d be a lot cheaper, since you’d probably qualify for EU status right now. You might even qualify for the free fee initiative and pay no tuition at all.
Go to super match and enter pre-health, bio behavioral science, movement science…
@b@r!um
I’d wish! Their usual entry requirement is AAA or AAB, this is a Abitur grade of 1.3/1.5. I have 2.1, so this is not sufficient at all. I don’t think there is any Western European country I have a chance in.
@MYOS1634
Thanks, but most universities would still be too expensive with their international tuition.
Look at the two universities that admitted you: do they offer such majors?
@MYOS1634 I actually didn’t receive a decision yet - but yes, they have Pre-Medicine and a Biology major. Must still see, whether it’s possible or really worth to pay the tuition for the Graduate Medical Program in Poland or Czech. I could get a student loan from a German bank at any time if I want to enter the Graduate program in Eastern Europe, but I’d have 60,000€ (68,000$) in debt afterwards, whereas I’d have almost no debt if I entered the Romanian MD program now. The first option is recognized worldwide, the second option not so.
This may seem incomprehensible to some, so I want to clarify: I can’t imagine myself to live in Germany or in any other EU country (except for the UK) after college. I’d preferably like to live in the US and my favorite states are NY, Florida and California. While it might not be the biggest deal to get a residency or a visa (which is actually no problem for Doctors), it’s a problem if the Medical School is not approved. I’m afraid of going to Romania now and regretting it in a few years, because I wouldn’t be eligible to get a license in the states I’d like to live in. I hope the whole thing makes more sense to you and doesn’t seem to be too counterintuitive.
Biology isn’t the same as the majors I listed. Look for kinesiology or movement science, for example. Or neuroscience.
samman282, I see your dilemma. Just to throw another idea into the mix, have you considered getting another secondary school credential for the sole purpose of raising your grades? You could sit for British A-levels as an independent learner, for example. I realize that this plan might require two gap years (one year to prepare for exams, a second year to apply to universities), but it would involve substantially less financial and academic risk than any of your other options. You might even be able to find a post-graduation high school program in Great Britain that’ll help you prepare for the A-levels.
They are very, very, very different states. The only thing they have in common is that they are popular vacation destinations for Germans.
I assume you’re thinking of the national interest waiver self-petition for a green card? In case you haven’t read the details, it comes with a few strings attached:
- You’d be working in rural Iowa or maybe a prison in California. Places that American physicians don’t want to work at.
- You’d be confined to primary care specialties (“Allgemeinarzt”), which translate to roughly half the income of your specialist colleagues.
Barium for president! (Or something. You’re an amazing resource!)
@MYOS1634 They don’t offer these programs, only pre-professional programs, biology and chemistry majors. The universities that offer these majors are more expensive and I don’t think they’d be able to give enough scholarships.
@b@r!um Wow! It really sounds like a great idea, but there’s no guarantee that I achieve the required grades so I think there’s too much risk in the whole thing.
Also, California is my favorite :). NY and Florida are only alternatives. I guess it’s a popular destination for everybody, it’s simply an amazing state. Do you know whether the Romanian program is recognized in New York? I did only find a list with ~10 universities from abroad which are approved, but I doubt these are all.
And so many thanks for mentioning the requirements of the self-petition! I did only know that I’d have to work in an underserved area for a couple of years (I think 3?). Being a primary care specialties is also not what I want. In that case, there is only the sponsored H-1B visa left which is competitive though.
I have roughly calculated what my options would cost:
- Pre-Med in the US + Graduate Med in Poland: ~12,000$ tuition and room&board x 4 + ~17,000$ tuition and 6,200$ living costs x 4=140,800$
- Biomedical Science in the UK + Grad Med in Poland: ~9,600$ living costs x 4 + 23,200$ x 4 in Poland=131,200$
- 6-year English MD program in Poland: 10,000€ tuition for the 1st year + 9,500€ x 5 +5,500€ living costs x 6=90,500€=102,600$
- 6-year English MD program in Romania: 5,000€ tuition x 6 + 5,500€ x 6 living costs=63,000€=71,500$.
UMN has international transfer scholarships and has
- Applied Economics, in CFANS
or
-Kinesiology, in CEHD
CFANS also has Nutrition, which has a lot of premed classes.
Why does it matter? Because it’s easier to get into CFANS or CEHD than the college of sciences or of engineering. And because fewer internationals apply, your odds are greater to get one of the scholarships.
BTW, these two programs are very good. Applied Economics, in particular, enjoys a great reputation in the Midwest (lots of internships).
@MYOS1634
Southern Utah actually has Nutrition as a major. But I’d love to apply to the University of Minnesota- their application deadline passed unfortunately. Anyway, I’ll email them and ask them whether they’d still consider my application.
Probably not with scholarship for Fall 2015. Right now your best bet is to go to Scotland and transfer from there to the Us, or go to one of the universities that offered you scholarships.
You can look into Southern Oregon and Humboldt too (although you should be aware the latter has a reputation for drug consumption,especially weed). They re still taking applications and may still have scholarships. Same thing at UMaine Farmington.
I am gonna play devil’s advocate for a minute.
If you want a residency spot in the US, you’ll have to pass the US Medical Licensing Exam. Which seems to be challenging for international candidates - less than 50% pass all exams in the sequence. You’ll need to do substantially better than “passing” if you want to be a competitive candidate in the residency match program. Odds are you’d get a crummy residency spot, since your Eastern European medical degree would probably send you to the bottom of everyone’s preference list. And after your mediocre-at-best residency program, you’d be working a relatively low-wage job for 5+ years to earn your green card, either through the national interest waiver program or hired by some corporate penny-pinching medical system (Kaiser Permanente et al).
You are not scared by the prospect of investing 6 years of your life and a 6-digit amount of money into an Eastern European medical school, for a 50% chance to get a (mediocre) start to your medical career?
But you are scared by the pressure of scoring AAA or AAB on three A-levels? Almost a third of all A-level grades are As. And most A-level candidates would not have the stamina to succeed in medical school, nor the advantage to spend a full year preparing for the exams after they have already learned the material.
I think I would rather take the calculated risk of re-taking a college entrance credential in order to attend a medical school with a more direct path to a career in medicine.
@MYOS1634
But if I went to Scotland or the US I’d need to go to Grad Med School in Poland or the UK (with some luck). Do you think this route is optimal?
@b@r!um
I understand what you mean and this is what I’m afraid of. However, I see much more risk in taking A-Levels: If I wanted to apply to UK universities then, I’d have to take the UKCAT and have a good score in addition to the A-Levels exams and then there’s an interview. There are students who don’t get admitted to medical programs with superior results. And in Germany I am considered as a “Bildungsinländer” so I wouldn’t fall into the quota for foreign students which means that A-Levels won’t affect my chances. I am really trying to be realistic and I think going this path brings too much risk along. Also, spending another two years only on trying to get into a medical school is too much time. I’d loose two years worth of salary and begin my studies with 21. That’s why I’d feel much more comfortable beginning my studies in the Fall.
I want to add something about Polish Medical Schools: Many of them enjoy a high reputation and are approved by the Medical Board of California. E.g. the Poznan University of Medical Sciences says they have a 93% residency first-attempt match rate in the US and a 86% pass rate of Step 1: http://pums.ump.edu.pl/ . However, I am not sure where their graduates really go to and I’m well aware that it’s some type of an advert.
Does this mean that you would participate in the residency match program as a US-educated candidate? Or do you have to jump through all the extra hoops of an “international medical graduate”?
You also need to ask how the program is recognized or accredited in other jurisdictions. Suppose you lose the option of going to the US. Where else could you practice with that degree?
I have to comment:
@b@r!um knows her stuff and she’s trying to provide you with realistic expectations that you’re not seeming to understand. It is tough to practice in California or other states if you are not medically trained in the states. You really have built out a fantasy and want to live out your dreams in California= very difficult to do. The odds are that you would have to go to a state that needs medical personnel. California doesn’t lack physicians. Our CA medical board can approve licenses, but that doesn’t mean you are guaranteed employment to practice. I have a medically approved license for California: I pay a fee, take a couple of courses yearly, no big deal.
Wake up and deal with reality: what you see in the movies is not what you get in California. I have a daughter who is considering doing the med school route but she is realistic and is considering several disciplines. She is training now, as an undergrad, at a free clinic in Sacramento. She works with med students and is learning, on the spot, how to work with medically indigent patients and, the most important thing she has learned is that she needs to brush up on her bilingual language skills.
The big cities have very large multicultural populations that need bilingual physicians who can speak fluent Mandarin, Tagalog, Spanish, Vietnamese and American Sign Language. In between the large cities are geographically diverse towns with low valleys with extremely hot and cold temperatures, rocky shorelines, deserts, mountain and snow communities. We’re in the ring of fire so we are susceptible to earthquake training. I take it that such training doesn’t occur often in Europe?
Employment comes from the feeder physicians groups who want physicians knowledgeable with US insurance codes, practices and Medi-cal/Medicare limits. We don’t have socialized medicine and our medical insurance continues to change. You learn a LOT of insurance practices in med school, stateside- which tests, treatments and follow-ups you can and cannot prescribe based on the patient’s medical insurance and how to get pre-authorization for medical procedures. No, the nurses won’t do that for you.
Big difference between our medical groups and Europe.
It is not as easy as you think to get a job in the US as a physician. Happydad’s new Dr. is fully fluent in four languages and was a medical school professor in Russia before coming to the US. This Dr. had to do a full residency in the US (in an inner city hospital in a tough neighborhood), and then spent five years in a remote rural location in order to qualify for the long-term visa. After all of that, this Dr. is now on staff at a mid-sized regional medical facility in the frozen upper middle of the country. The two closest big cities are Winnipeg (Canada), and Fargo (North Dakota).
If you want to practice medicine in the US, you need to know that it is much more likely that you too would follow the pathway that leads from the inner city through a remote rural to barely on the edge of something resembling civilization, than a pathway that goes anywhere near California.