Hello guys, how are you?
I hope you are all doing well.
I’m making that post because i need to get some little things off my chest and because i think that some advices could be usefull.
I’m 20y from Brazil, ex IT major student but i didn’t identify myself with the thing and now i’m pretty decided on going to the medschool and becoming one doctor following one international career path.
I need to work for a few years more to help my family to afford for my medschool costs so probably i’m just beginning the medschool around my 22 or 23.
I’m feeling extremely overloaded and pressed with all the research that i’m going to have to be doing for that reason.
First, because i had tought mainly in becoming a doctor in the U.S, but i’m actually confused if that’s the better choice for me, i know that some other countries like australia, canada, or even switzerland or others offers competitives salaries as well.
I’m definetly quite worried about all of that because i know how is important to build one strong CV since the first day of the medschool and how it can impact on your chances of getting one residency spot, wherever you end up deciding to try it.
So i don’t know exactly which country i would decide to follow for my whole career to practice the medicine, plus i’m unsure about which specialty i would like to choice, it feels like i would need some advisor or lamp genius (sorry for the joke).
Do someone here can offer any good advice for that young guy?
It’s just a thing about which country should i choose, where can i get the better salaries, which are my chances as one IMG, (plus i still didn’t decide which country or university i’m getting into medschool). And all of that.
If someone can say anything to help me to get my mind a little bit clearer i would be gratefull, thank you very much.
My understanding is that you won’t be able to practice medicine in the US if you haven’t gone to medical school here. I can’t speak for the other countries you’ve mentioned, but they might have similar rules.
Tagging @WayOutWestMom who is our medical schools admissions expert.
There is the USMLE path, where you take the tests and obviously work hard to build one strong CV to apply for residency spots, i’m sure that other countries such australia, canada, switzerland and others take international doctors as well, i just don’t know how their systems works, i just don’t know what would be better for me and i’m trying to figure out what out be worthier while talking about salaries and all of that, i have lots of doubts about which specialty should i choose and which university get in, i appreciate any advice. Thank you very much.
Forget about Switzerland. Unless you are a Swiss citizen and have attended a Swiss med school, you can’t get medical license to practice in Switzerland. You must also prove language fluency in Swiss German and Swiss French.
Australia may allow internationals who attend med school in Australia, do well and are willing to stay and work in rural/medically underserved areas as a GP for X years. [Not sure if it’s changed in the past 5 years, it used to be for at least 7 years.] This pathway is not guaranteed and generally speaking international students are expected to leave AUS once they complete med school to do their residency training in their home country.
Most of Australia’s med school are direct entry from high school programs. There are some post-graduate entry programs, but there are only a handful of those.
International students must be able to pay 100% of the cost of their medical education in Australia as there are no scholarships and no loans available for international students.
Be aware that Australia has removed physician from its list of approved careers for immigration purposes. (Meaning unless you can legally enter the country as a PR first, simply being a physician won’t help you get permission to enter the country.)
Here are the pathways open to foreign educated physicians
Canada is a very difficult place for foreign trained doctors to get licensed. Pathways for foreign education physicians You will be required to completely re-do your medical residency from the beginning.
Canadian medical schools do not accept international students with a very few, very limited exceptions. (Mostly for 1 or 2 countries whose governments have paid to reserve seats for its own citizens to attend med school. Those internationals are then expected to return to their home country to complete medical residency training.)
Medicine in the US
US medical schools require that all international students have earned a minimum of 45-90 credits at a US college or university. These credits include all the required med school prerequisite classes. You must hold a baccalaureate degree from a university that that recognized/approved by AMCAS/ACOMAS/TMDSAS
International students must also take the MCAT, have the necessary US-based ECs expected from all al med school applicants.
Also international students must be able to demonstrate they can fund 100% of the cost of the US medical education as there are no scholarships or federal loans available to them. You may be able to qualify for a private education loan IF you have a qualified US co-signer for your loan. Internationals must deposit at least 2 years of tuition/cost of attendance in a US bank escrow account before they will be allowed to matriculate. (Total ~$200,000 for the first 2 years of med school. Some programs require higher deposits.) International students are NOT allowed to work in the US while attending med school so you will not be able to get a job in the US while studying medicine here.
Internationals without a PR status in the US are at a disadvantage when it comes to applying for residencies since most residency programs do not sponsored visas. Those that do sponsor visas generally only sponsor J-1 visas, which will require you to leave the US at the end of your medical training. Because of this, internationals generally do not match to competitive specialties, and do not match to desirable locations or at top flight academic hospitals. Most non-US med grads end up in IM, FM, EM, peds, neuro or pathology. They tend to end up at poor, inner city urban hospitals or at small, rural programs.
Foreign-educated IMGs wanting to practice in the US have a process similar to the other countries you mention (Australia, Canada).
First, you must apply to the ECFMG and be approved. Next, once you have ECFMG approval, you will register for and take the USMLE exams. If you pass those, and have US clinical experience, then you can apply for the National Residency Match Program. You can apply for any specialty that you are qualified for, but generally speaking, FMGs are most likely to match into IM, FM, EM, peds, neuro or pathology. Again most residencies that will consider FMGs only offer J-1 visas.
In 2025, the match rate for non-citizen FMGs was 58%
- Non-U.S. citizen IMGs saw a large increase in participation this year with 11,465 active applicants, up 14.4 percent over 2024. The marked increase in participation served to push the PGY-1 match rate down but only slightly, 0.5 of a percentage point, to 58.0 percent.
I don’t guess that i would have the conditions to afford for the studies inside of the U.S, Canada, or Australia, is really all of that hard to get one residency spot in these countries as one doctor? If i manage to get one permanent residency in the US, can i have more chances to match as one img?
Another thing, when you mean “any specialty that you are qualified for”, what do you mean by this? There is any requirement of previous experience or something? I think that my ambitions are pretentious, maybe i would like to go for surgery, primary care or some other high-paying specialties, is it close to the impossible or something? Like which’s the rates of matching? 5%? Which would be the differential of these ones which matched?
Matching in the US takes place AFTER med school, not before. So you can’t worry about becoming a surgeon until you have the finances, pre-requisites, visa issues, etc. sorted out. You would match residency in your fourth year after rotating through various specialties. You don’t declare any interests AT ALL besides “Becoming a Physician” when you apply.
Do you have a Bachelor’s degree?
Just gonna say I’m surprised to hear that because my home country loses a lot of doctors to Canada. Some of the states have programs where you can get permanent residency after spending x years (x varies by state) serving some rural area in the middle of nowhere. My cousin went this route.
Yes. Being a PR improves your chances immensely.
You qualify for specialties by your USMLE scores, your med school grades, prior experiences and training (you’ll need at least 1-2 LORs from physicians practicing in the specialty you wish to enter). Some specialties expect med students/IMGs to have research publications in the field they’re hoping to enter.
Primary care encompasses family medicine (GP outside the US), general internal medicine, pediatrics (lowest pay of all specialties) and geriatrics. All are among the lowest paid specialties.
Surgery is difficult for a foreign-trained physician to match into. The most typical pathway would be to train as surgeon in your home country, then apply for the NRMP match program after doing at least one visiting rotation in the US. The other route would be to excel in your studies in med school , then apply to NRMP in surgery and preliminary surgery. Prelim surgery is 1 year long, non-renewable position that will NOT make you eligible for a medical license in the US. However if you match into one, and bust your butt working hard, being THE best 1st year surgical resident in the program and impress your supervising physicians so that you get a highly favorable LOR, you may be able to match into a general surgery positions at the end of the program after going thru the Match program a second time.
what do you mean by one visiting rotation in the us? how does that work?
Do you have a Bachelor’s degree?
I don’t have time to look up everything for you.
Answers for many of the questions you’re asking will be found here:
A visiting rotation is doing a 4-6 week clinical rotation at a US hospital that is not associated with your medical school.
Medical students can apply to do visiting rotation through VSAS (Visiting Student Application Service). You must have the approval of your medical school to apply and show proof of $1M in US malpractice insurance.
Getting a visiting rotation can be challenging and competitive. Most medical schools sharply limit the number of visiting students they will accept. (They have to accommodate all their own students first!) Don’t just apply to one program–apply to dozens.
Getting US clinical experience is challenging for most FMGs. But you need at least 1 US-based rotation to have the best chances of getting a match in the main match process.
Please answer the question…do you have a bachelors degree, and if so, was it from a U.S. college?
It would be a LOT easier for you to pursue a medical career in your native country. That is my free advice.
But can them do it even after get majored? Because it sounded like you do it after you got majored, right?
But now, between us, $1M is a lot 
By what i had saw, some rotations in universities had the cost of just 4k, i think that this 1M insurance is just for surgery practice, isn’t it?
For those which are asking, no i don’t have one bacharelor degree as i stated in the first line of my post, i’m 20y and just leaved the IT course to get into the medical field. And money and immigration is important to me so yes i have to go to one 1rd country to be able to make more money as their currency worth more and the economy tends to be more stable, naturally
Medical school in the US is a graduate degree, which means you need to first have a bachelor’s degree
Since you’re not a US citizen or PR, you’ll need an employer to sponsor you for a work visa if you want to work here. That is extremely unlikely to happen for someone with no college degree. Sorry, but you’re going to have to pursue more realistic plans.
You need a Bachelor’s degree, complete the med school required courses, take the MCAT exams, etc. to apply to med school in the US. We don’t have a pathway where you can switch out of a different major and then begin your medical training right away- you need to complete your first degree before applying.
I can imagine you are feeling overloaded. But the two big issues facing students from overseas are that medical education is not an undergraduate discipline as it is in many countries, AND it costs a huge amount of money to study medicine in the US.
So my advice- find a way to study medicine in your own country, whether it’s now or after you finish your bachelor’s. There are many wonderful things about the US educational system, but navigating a medical education, getting a visa to stay past one’s residency, paying the fees AND living expenses, etc. are NOT the wonderful things.
I have a large family overseas so I get the disconnect. A couple of them have ended up doing Pharmacy instead of medicine- it was easier to switch tracks to pharmacy than medicine, and both of these cousins decided they hated what they were learning in a non-healthcare discipline. It added time to their degree but it wasn’t horrifically expensive. One has a terrific career at a global pharmaceutical company, the other is what we in the US would call a compounding pharmacist at a large hospital.
Could that be an option for you? Another cousin switched into Psychology, it took a little longer because of the licensing requirements to become a therapist-- but it was shorter and cheaper than becoming a physician. And it was a quick pathway into a great job while doing mandatory military service- there was no question that the military wanted him deployed in a mental health facility, and then he continued there as a civilian therapist when his service ended.
Good luck!
Maybe you should refer back to your thread from January where a lot of these questions were already answered.
What are you talking about! Medical school students in the U.S. do clinical rotations as part of their medical school programs. There is no additional charge, except sometimes you do need to lay for housing at elective rotation sites usually a month long.
What do you mean “get majored”? Are you asking about what a doctor does once selected for a residency? If so, you don’t pay for that…you actually get paid (not a lot per hour but you do get paid).
You seem to have a large misunderstanding about how medical school works in the United States.
-
You get a bachelors degree…and take the required courses for medical school applicants. You take the MCAT. You have significant shadowing, volunteer work with underprivileged groups, patient facing volunteer or work, Letters of Reference, and then you apply…and hope you will get invited for an interview. If you do, you also need good interviewing skills.
-
If you get accepted to medical school, you enroll. And pay to attend…and pay your living expenses as well. During medical school, you will have coursework, and rotations, both required and elective. This will cost roughly $100,000 a year. It’s very hard for international students to get accepted to medical schools here. It’s hard for everyone!
-
You will take a ton of tests. Step one and two, shelf tests, and you will have evaluations for each rotations. You will need to do well. Then you will apply for residency spots during the fall term of your last year of medical school (med school is usually 4 years long). You will again hope for some interviews. And at the end of this process (too long to explain here) you will hopefully get a residency.
-
You will then do a residency…usually 3-7 years in length. During that time, you will take your written and oral board exams in your specialty. You get to rank your choices for residency, but a computer algorithm actually does the selections.
-
Once you have completed ALL of that, you will be applying for attending physician jobs.
None of this is easy for an international student.
@WayOutWestMom what did I get wrong!
For reference: