What path is best for a Caribbean student wanting to eventually practice in America

go4cornell
Sun, 17 Apr 2011 16:14:02 +0000

Hi, so as title asks, which path would be best for a Caribbean student (more specifically Jamaican) who may eventually want to practice in the U.S. as a surgeon (unaware of what type as of now)?

A) Stay home (Jamaica), go to University of the West Indies (UWI)- Mona, and enter the faculty of medical sciences and earn an MBBS?

B) Go to a Caribbean university/med school such as SGU, Ross, AUC and get an MD there? More specifically the BS/MD program a.k.a. the PreMed->Med program?

C) Try as hard as possible to get into a U.S. undergrad & med school (almost impossible, or so I’ve heard) despite the fact that the vast majority of U.S. med schools don’t accept internationals and of those that do, 1/2 accept approx. 3 (out of thousands) per year and the other 1/2 that claim to accept intl’s haven’t accepted any within the past three or four years? Not to mention the fact that if you are accepted you basically have to show the university $250,000 upfront before you are allowed to matriculate.

Thanks in advance for your responses and I would also be very grateful if you could also expound on your choices (if you want to, don’t have to). Once again, Thank You.