Caribbean Medical School Options

Caribbean medical schools offer many options especially entering into residency or to practice in the United States. Many medical universities in the Caribbean are accredited and gives opportunity for the students to practice clinical rotations in the United States. Even if these universities are WHO listed and your degrees are recognized, sometimes graduates of medical schools in the Caribbean are not allowed to practice in the certain or all states of United States. Before choosing a university one should have done research to select a top Caribbean medical school.

To practice in the United States here are some requirements that student should hold

• Get graduated from the IMED listed university (International Medical Education Directory.)

•          Pass in USMLE 1 and USMLE 2 exams

•          Become certified in ECFMG board (not required for 5^th pathway)

Most US residency programs do not accept students who have done 1 year of Clinical rotations in the United States. They do consider more than one year of rotations. Instead they ask for recommendation letters from those rotations

Even then some US residencies do not consider International medical school graduates. Besides ECFMG certification more than 12 states in the US expects additional requirements. So students should be careful before applying into any Caribbean medical universities and should check these issues

Caribbean medical schools are one typically providing Basic science curriculum in the first and second year of education. In the 3^rd and 4^th years of education rotations are take place in the affiliated hospitals. These hospitals are mostly located in the east coast.

Graduates from Caribbean medical schools are referred to as the Foreign Medical Graduates (FMG’s) or International Medical Graduates (IMG’s).  The graduates of Caribbean medical schools are represented in all the specialties. Mostly IMG’s practice in the Non surgical primary care facilities

The main reason why the International medical graduates are represented in the primary care specialty is that these are the most under staffed specialties, less competitive, and less compensated. As a result more residency programs accepts IMG’s in the Primary care field

In the Caribbean medical schools the faculty are well dedicated to teach and makes these schools are non research based. Students don’t want to consider this (non research based) because after MD graduation students will prepare their USMLE exams as US counter parts do

Find the best medical school and do research on the school directly to their website. In Caribbean medical schools the applications are invited for three different times, spring. Summer and fall

Source : http://www.caribbeanmedicalschools.com/blog/caribbean-medical-school-options/