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This article is from the Medical Education
FAQ, by eric@wilkinson.com (Eric P. Wilkinson, M.D.)with
numerous contributions by others.
3.15) Should I consider going to a foreign school?
Attending a foreign medical school is a tricky situation. On the
one hand, you have the opportunity of attending medical school and
graduating with a M.D. degree, but on the other hand, your
opportunities for practice in the U.S. are severely limited.
Because of legislation, International Medical Graduates
(IMGs)--students who obtain their M.D. outside the U.S.--are being
scapegoated for the country's oversupply of physicians and their
acceptance into U.S. residency training programs is being scaled
back. This means that the IMG who does enter the US for residency
training generally must score very high on the USMLE and the new
Clinical Skills Assessment (CSA) examination, which is only
administered to IMGs (cf 7.10, 7.11).
The education may or may not be inferior, depending on the foreign
school you wish to attend, but whatever the case, attending a
foreign school is going to be expensive. Student aid from the
U.S. may not be so easy to come by, and you may have to spend more
time in school because of the difference in curricula. Take, for
example, the system of medical education in Australia versus the
United States. In the US, students go through four years of
undergraduate college to earn a Bachelors degree and then go on for
another four years in medical school for the medical degree. In
Australia, students go into a medical program as high school
graduates and earn a Bachelors in Medicine and a Bachelors in
Surgery in six years. This means that a US college graduate who
wishes to attend medical school in Australia will have to spend an
additional two years because of the medical curriculum in Australia,
which translates into higher costs.
Think about your decision to apply to a foreign medical school
carefully. Not all are reputable, and boasting a World Health
Organization (WHO) listing is not at all impressive. Not all
foreign medical schools offer a solid medical education, which of
course does not preclude those that do. Speak to your premedical
advisor and, if possible, any students at the schools that you
consider.
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