@WayOutWestMom is this a realistic expectation in the U.S….the sponsored visa part.
Also @livinglife7 you are not an American applying abroad. You are an international student applying abroad. I think your subject title is misleading. Would you like it changed!
I personally know a few people who have succeeded and some in the process rn so I think yes. I meant student studying in America sorry, I don’t know how to change the title but if you do I’m happy to change it!
See if my change is OK.
That’s a practical approach, and it would be equally practical (probably more in fact) to have a plan B. Even for British citizens, you can’t use all your UCAS choices for medicine (to avoid the risk that the applicant doesn’t end up with any places) - with that as one indication of how hard it is to get in, you can multiply that for an international.
The fact just is that most people who practice as doctors get their medical degrees in their home country, and if they want to move abroad they then get licensed in that country as well and there are often various hoops to jump through, but it’s doable… and almost always way cheaper. (I know people who trained in my home country who are now practicing in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK.) but if this absolutely isn’t an option for you then I second the suggestion that you need to have some other healthcare alternatives for college.
Do you have any budget constraints? Whether med school in the US or MBChB in the UK, you are looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars for which you are unlikely to get funding. I’m asking not to be nosy but to think about what other options you might have with that budget.
Yes, but it’s not a guaranteed means to staying - it’s an H1B which is a work visa and not permanent. It would be the same for the UK, although you are less likely to see equivalent headlines to “H1B doctor deported” there.
There are so many ifs to this route, the first if is just being accepted to medical school in the first place as an international.
I’m wondering if residency programs will do this.
Hoping @WayOutWestMom weighs in.
I won’t go into detail budget isn’t too much of an issue; I’ve been told a phD is a somewhat more realistic means of staying and getting a visa/citizenship, although again I do know people who got green cards by being a doctor and getting sponsored. I truly appreciate all the options suggested though, they’ve given me lots of insight!
Given political climate can def change I’m just focusing on getting into college first…hence the post asking about AP tests
There are a lot of moving parts to this, but the answer is yes, it’s possible.
Is it likely? It depends but generally should be considered a long shot.
So question: are you doing this primarily because you want to be a doctor, or primarily as a route to citizenship?
Unfortunately, a PhD is no longer a realistic route to a green card. Funding for research has been cut by 50% and graduate programs in the sciences are being squeezed hard–particularly in the biosciences, though physical sciences, computer science, and engineering aren’t doing much better. Research labs are closing and US citizen grad students are being encouraged to look overseas for their future careers.
Definitely doctor haha citizenship is just something I’ll eventually have to deal with since you can’t stay on a visa forever…
There may be a path to citizenship, but you can’t rely on it (as detailed above). So next question is it worth the cost of the most expensive medical degree in the world if you end up having to practice elsewhere?
If your primary goal is to become a physician, would you consider attending medical school in Australia?
Australia has both direct entry and graduate entry medical schools and is more accepting of international students than either US or UK medical schools.
If you want to practice medicine in the US, you could attend an overseas med school, then apply to the NRMP to enter the Match for a US medical residency. in 2025, 46% of noncitizen international medical grads who applied for a US residency position, got one. (See Table 4 Results and Data: 2025 Main Residency Match | NRMP )
Ochsner SOM at University of Queensland in Australia and the Atlantic Bridge program in Ireland are both particularly successful in placing students into US medical residencies.
The news today of a new $100000 fee per year for H1B visa holders, assuming it isn’t overturned legally, is probably going to undermine the extent to which this practice continues (as well as making it more difficult in general for internationals to get longer-term jobs in the US after their OPT is up).
The $100,000 fee is going to absolutely devastate rural medicine/rural hospitals since these immigrant doctors form the backbone of healthcare in many smaller communities.
I know where my husband’s family is from in east-central Missouri and southern Missouri, nearly all the doctors are Indian or Pakistani who are serving their 5 years of public service to earn their green cards.
The US accepts between 6000-7000 non-citizen foreign trained physicians in residency programs even year. The residency programs that accept FMGs tend to be “workhorse” programs in inner city hospitals and rural programs.
FMGs are 1/3 of ALL internal medicine residents in any given year.
The US is opening medical schools at pace unseen in the last 100 years, but adding an additional 7000 med school seats just isn’t going to happen any time soon.
I was hoping they’d reduce the fee significantly to something that would help disincentivize the abusers that flood the lottery application (the so called consultancies) but not turn away genuine needs. Especially for non-lottery H1Bs like medical and academic staff.