You need to do the conversion/licensing exams, you can’t just get a residency without those. Like I said, I know a bunch of people including ones I went to high school with, with foreign medical degrees now practicing in the US. Including family doctors, a pulmonologist, an anesthesiologist and a cardiologist. Do a search including USMLE to help find more info. It’s not fast or easy either, the exams + residency, but it is a far more likely route than trying to get someone else to fund undergrad + medical school in the US.
What about the admission requirement pages that say that one can apply with foreign degrees? And that they would have to complete 2 years of coursework in US?
Not impossible. Difficult, yes, but not impossible.
See this document
In 2022, 7864 Non-US citizen IMGs matched into US medical residencies. Only 18 of those were Canadians.
The 2024 report on the IMG Match just came out, but it’s in a web-interactive format.
You can access it here:
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There are some few community colleges which offer BS programs, they aren’t common. But there are a few.
Do you think that these community colleges programs are less competent than top universities for the applications? I mean, do you think that their graduateds don’t stand any chance?
Community colleges are consider to be less competitive (i.e. easier) than 4 year colleges.
Since community colleges are open enrollment (anyone who has finished high can enroll–there are no academic minimum standards), and since the academic expectations at most community colleges are not at the same level as 4 year universities, students who only have CC credits are at a pretty serious disadvantage when it comes to med school admissions.
If you look at admission requirements for medical schools, nearly every single one of them strongly recommends (and in med school speak that mean requires) all CC credit be supplemented with additional college classes in the same departments as their CC credits.**
Students who attend a CC because of financial considerations are expected to finish the last 2 years of their education at a 4 year academic institution.
**An exception would be for career-changers who have already completed a baccalaureate degree and have worked in a completely different area field. Since they already have a track record of success at a 4 year college, med schools may accept CC credits for some of their pre-reqs without requiring supplemental UL course credits.
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And community colleges are NOT free. Plus you still have to pay your other living expenses. The likelihood of getting full funding (tuition, fees, plus room and board, and personal expenses) for a community college is close to zero.
Why don’t you become a doctor in Brazil?
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The process for non-citizen IMGs to get a US medical residency is pretty straight forward
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complete your medical degree at an ECFMG-recognized medical school.
(You can find a list on the World Directory of Medical Schools. Eligible med schools will be marked with a ECFMG eligible note) -
take and pass the USMLE Step 1, Step 2CK, Step 2CS, Step 3.
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do US-based clinical rotations or observerships to gain US clinical experience.
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apply for and receive ECFMG certification of eligibility. You must meet all eligibility requirements for a US J-1 visa.
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Apply thru ERAS to any and all residency programs of interest.
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Attend any interview offered
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Submit a rank list to the NRMP
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Get Match results in March. If you Matched–great! If you didn’t match, you may enter the SOAP and Scramble process for any unfilled residency positions.
Most US residencies do NOT sponsor H1-B visas, only J-1 visas.
As for competitive specialties, they’re called competitive specialties for a reason. Most US educated med students won’t match into the competitive specialties either. One needs high board scores, high med school grades, high clinical grades in the specialty and related specialties, letters of support from physicians in that speicalty, research with publications in the specialty, and audition rotations at several different programs in that specialty. Plus you must fit in with the particular programmatic goals of the particular residency program overall and mesh well personality-wise with the other residents and attendings.
IMGs will not match into the competitive specialties unless they are already trained in that specialty and have several years experience as an attending physician in the specialty. Even then, IMGs will probably not match into their previous specialty, but into FM, IM, peds or pathology.
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I will say that every single one of my high school friends who completed residency here subsequently got green cards and citizenship. I’m nit sure which process they used to adjust from j1 but can ask.
(It is actually an issue of brain drain for the source countries - they lose a lot of doctors to Canada too, which makes it very attractive for those who want permanent residency.)
While I know google is not 100% reliable, it seems public universities in Brazil are free and private are $2-10k a year. It seems a no brainer cost wise to do it at home and convert later.
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Perhaps someone more familiar with green card guidelines can comment…but I thought you couldn’t leave the U.S. for years to go to medical school abroad…
You can get /renew a re-entry permit but it doesn’t roll for more than 5 years, so no that’s not doable if he means first becoming an LPR then studying medicine elsewhere. I don’t think it’s shorter than 6-7 years anywhere.
I had assumed that the poster somehow meant becoming an LPR after med school abroad, but I may have misunderstood that post.
I read this as he was hoping to get a green card but then wondered about attending medical school outside of the US once he had that green card (LPR) status.
Perhaps he will clarify! @Solaris_73 please clarify what you are asking!
If he is asking about getting into medical school once he gets his green card…after undergrad abroad, I think @WayOutWestMom covered that upstream.
Yes, as I read again I realized that was what they meant but that’s not an option it seems.
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[Bachelor in Applied Science - LCCC | Laramie County Community College, Wyoming]
That community college offers some bacharelor’s program. So let me see if i understood you well. Even if someone took one 4 bs degree like this in one community college so he would need to study for two more years in another 4y course? Or worse, would he need to take more four years again?
What did you meant by additional classes in the same departments, do it means just take again everything that you already took? Like that just make the double of this?
Out of state tuition for LCCC is over $10000 a year, with a total estimated cost of attendance (including room and board etc) of close to $23000. Even if you get WUE (assuming you’ve been resident in a WUE state before you start there) it’s over $18000 a year.
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How do you plan to pay the tuition, fees, room, board, books, and personal expenses to attend this college?
I doubt you will be getting scholarships to do so.
The only BS in applied science degrees offered at LCCC are in healthcare administration and business management. Both are business degrees and have zero to do with bio, chem, physics or math as a discipline of study.
Neither of these “applied science” degrees include any actual science classes and will not be acceptable to medical schools.
In this case, you are misunderstanding how the word “science” is being used. LCCC is using “science” to mean a structured plan of study that is not based on the creative arts.
So if you earned a BS in healthcare management at LCCC, you would still need to attend a 4 year college where you could take the science classes in physics, math, stats, bio and chemistry I list above as pre-reqs. Because of course sequencing (order in which you are required to take classes), you would need at least 2.5 years of additional colleges classes.
Sequencing—you must complete 2 semesters of general chemistry before you can take organic chemistry. You must complete 2 semesters of organic chemistry before you can take biochemistry.
Science education builds from a basic foundation upward into more and more complex topics. You need the basics first before you can understand the more complicated and difficult materials.
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One of my daughter’s med school classmates came to the US from Cameroon at age 20 on work permit as a long haul trucker. He worked for 3 years full time doing this before he qualified for a green card. As he gained seniority at his job and was able to pick his routes, he chose to work along the I-40 corridor, driving between Los Angeles and St Louis. He picked a city midway along the corridor to settle in. He drove every Thursday night thru Mon night. He took classes Tues thru Thursday at the local state university. He paid for his classes from his wages as driver. It took him about 8-9 years to finish his degree since he only took 2-3 classes at a time, but he did. Also on his days off, he volunteered with his church, shadowed doctors, volunteered at nursing homes and the local hospital. (He also got married to woman from his home country who moved to the US to work as a nurse, and had 4 kids. So he had a full, very busy life. ) He was accepted into medical school during his first application cycle and today is a working physician, still living in the city he originally settled in along the Interstate.
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@WayOutWestMom, please answer that question. You said that’s not possible for LPR graduated abroad get in medschool but what should we say about these pages that say one could take two years of coursework in US? Please elaborate, do you think that’s just unlikely? I saw a few ones in SDN that sounded to have had been addmited.
What about the state colleges? I saw that some of them in fact accept internacional students, do you think that them are too less competent or it’s compared to others universities?