In a conversation with a friend from Singapore, the suggestion arose of sending my daughter to England for medical school instead. My friend pointed out that several UK schools can provide accredited degrees recognized in the US. This pathway could allow my daughter to attain a medical degree in four years and commence residency training much earlier. However, it’s worth noting that while my daughter does not possess a UK passport, she does hold passports from both the US and the EU. I’m curious if an international educational experience of this nature holds value in the US. Has anyone had firsthand experience with such a situation?
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One caution I recently read was the difficulty in attaining residency placement back in the US after an overseas medical school. Just something to explore/consider.
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I think medical undergraduate places are very limited to internationals to the UK, due to funding. Expectation is that UK trained doctors will go onto serve in the NHS (at least for a while). The NHS part funds medical school, so is hestitant to give places to internationals who won’t stay.
But do some research to see if this is still accurate.
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There are several issues.
First, I’'m not 100% sure, but I am pretty sure medical school in the UK/EU is 6 years, not 4, unless you are talking about graduate entry programs (which require a baccalaureate for admission).
There are significant requirements for entry into these 6 year programs programs. Like IB classes in sciences and math.
And fluency in the local language because med student swill be dealing with local patients who may not speak English. (Not a problem in the UK, but elsewhere in Europe it will be.)
Next, UK/EU med schools teach a different curriculum than US med schools do so unless your daughter attends one of the schools that is designed specifically to send students back to the US for post-graduate training, your daughter may have difficulty passing the USMLEs. USMLE exams are required for everyone who wishes to practice medicine in the US–whether they study at home or abroad.
USMLE exams (and her scores on these exams) also determine whether a US-IMG (US citizen graduate of a foreign medical school) is able to do a residency in the US. IMGs need a higher score than a US grad just to be considered for the same position in the same specialty.
Many residency program directors simply screen out all IMG applicants since they typically have more applications for their program than than they have positions. (The IMG filter is one click of a button on ERAS before a PD downloads applications.)
Beside passing the USMLEs, your daughter will also need some US based clinical rotations in order to obtain US clinical experience. Without USCE, she might as well not even bother applying for residency since she will get screened out. She needs USCE both to obtain a LOR for residency from a US preceptor (an attending physician who has taught her in a clinical setting) AND to demonstrate she understands how medicine in the US works. The UK/EU train their physician using different drugs & medical terminology than the US does; insurance works VERY differently here; referrals work differently here; scope of practice is different… (there’s more but you get the idea.)
US-IMGs are disadvantaged in the residency selection process and are usually are limited to being considered only for a few less selective specialties (family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, pathology, neurology) and chiefly at less desirable residency sites (mostly impoverished inner city or rural community hospitals in midwestern or southern states.)
I guess the biggest risk is attending an overseas med school then failing to get a US medical residency. Only about 61% of USIMGs who submitted a Match list matched in 2024. (Applicants who register for the Match but don’t get any interviews do not submit s list and are considered withdrawn from the process and are not counted in that 61%.)
The bigger the gap between YOG (year of graduation from med school) and date of starting residency the less likely it is that an applicant will match (true even for US medical grads). This because clinical skills atrophy as does medical knowledge and it takes too long to bring these residents up to speed.
Unmatched US-IMGs are such a big issues that 2 states now allow unmatched US-IMGs to work as “assistant physicians” (Missouri) or “graduated registered physicians” (Arkansas). These positions basically are identical to PAs/NPs and do not lead to a medical license.
Not quite the same situation, but one of my daughters studied medicine in the US, completed her residency here and tried to get a medical license in a Commonwealth country–and had no end of difficulties. PM me if you want details.
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