USMLE preparation: Easy steps to find clinical electives, residency programs in USA
Seven Easy Steps to find clinical electives in USA
Step by step approach to search for clinical electives
1. Make a list: Go to Freida.com (www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/education-careers/graduate-medical-education/freida-online.page?) and search for all the residency programs in your speciality.
2. After that list, you can skip the programs of California (you need PTAL for match application) and Florida (they have weirds for IMGs to do electives there), although you can make a list from everywhere but you should mostly focus on New york, New jersey, Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, chicago etc.
3. After getting the entire list, start visiting their website individually, try to find out “International clinical electives” or “Foreign student clerkship” on their websites. If you can’t find that on some program’s website, then tick that one off from your list. By the end, you will realize that only a handful of programs are left (30-50 programs).
4. Start looking at their requirements which includes, but not limited to- USMLE step 1 score, TOEFL scores (NIH 26 in speaking), LOR from home country. If you are from Manipal or AIIMS, if your GPA is above some limit (MSKCC), what kind of visa they issue (F1 or B1), fee (harvard 4000$, mount sinai 3000$), background security check, if your college has collaboration with them (Tulane had once collaboration with UCMS), faculty sponsor needed, malpractice insurance, travel insurance, immunization and many other factors. You can further narrow down your list, according to their requirements.
5. Now with the final list in hand, start by collecting the email addresses of their elective coordinators. Mail everyone. I am giving you an example of that email.
Hello,
Greetings, I’m a fourth year medical student; interested in doing electives in Internal medicine for the months of……. . Could you please let me know if there are any spots available for the above mentioned months and also send me the relevant application material?
I would appreciate it if you could let me know the procedure for application for International visiting students. Would highly appreciate your help.
Thank you.
Regards,
……..
government medical college….
……..INDIA.
6) You will get a response from a few of them only. If you don’t get a reply, you can try calling them on the same number given on their website. If they say no, then make a habit of leaving your contact details to them, in case of any opening.
7) Send as many applications as you can and keep holding 3-4 places until you get confirmation from at least 3 of them. Never say NO to a place unless you really don’t want to go there or if you are not getting rotations in the speciality of your choice.
Note: This is the best way of getting an updated list with updated information. All the other lists that you will get off the internet, will be outdated, for sure. Its best to rely on first hand information rather than trusting someone else.
Also read,
Six things you can do in college before USMLE step 1 preparation
Eight Easy Steps to make your residency programs application list
Every year many IMGs apply for more than 200 programs and end up getting rejections from mass of the program that : “You don’t fulfill the program’s requirement criteria”. They end up spending thousands of dollars for no reason. On the other end, they miss some very IMG friendly programs because the list they got from their seniors or somewhere online, didn’t have the name of that program. Later on when they call those programs and ask for applying in their programs, they never deny that but none of them get interviews from those programs due to late application. I advise every IMG to make your own list as the requirements and programs changes every year. Don’t go with the outdated list that you found somewhere on the internet.
Step by step approach:
1. When you buy your residency token (ERAS residency token) on 1st July, you will be given access to the online program application portal for match through this portal. You can have access to all the programs which are participating in that particular year’s match. I advise you to first make a list from that portal and then print that list.
2. Next, then take off all the california programs from that list unless you have PTAL.
3. Then, I went to FRIEDA ONLINE (http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/education-careers/graduate-medical-education/freida-online.page?). Here, you can visit every single program on the list and look for their requirements like if they offer visa (J1 or H1), their minimum USMLE step scores cutoff, minimum number of months of US clinical experience (some programs ask for 6-12 months, take those programs off the list) or any other weird requirement. This is a kind of screening process and it’s just to take those programs off the list which are never going to send you an interview call.
4. Next, I visited the program website of every single program that remained in my list. The information that you need to gather from a program’s website is the confirmation of FRIEDAs information, visa sponsor, USCE months, research needed, cutoff scores, number of LORs, percentage of IMG residents, percentage of IMG faculty, last five years residents, number of seats, fellowship opportunities etc.
5. You can take off all the programs from the list after gathering all information mentioned above and if you don’t fulfill their requirements.
6. I personally took off all the big shot programs from my list from where I was sure not to get an interview call, including Hopkins, Mass general, BWH, Beth israel, Washington programs, Cornell, LIJ, Northwestern chicago and many more.
7. My advice is to apply even to the smallest and worst program ever existed. If you don’t want, then, you can skip ranking them for later on. But apply to them for the practice of your interview skills.
8. I advise you to apply from 100-150 programs after making wise judgement about getting call from a place
Tip: Try to apply all the programs (mostly) in New york, Chicago, Philadelphia, New jersey, Connecticut.
Also note the best iOS app for USMLE preparation – Dailyrounds.
Five things that reflects IMG friendliness of a program
The following are the characteristics of IMG friendly programs:
1. AMG hateness: A place where an American graduate would hate to work, is an IMG friendly program (bitter truth). There are several factors that lead Americans not to like a program and that help IMGs to get those places. Some of the factors include the location of the hospital, e.g, if it is located in the harlem or bronx area of New york, then Americans try to refrain from those programs as it will be difficult to live in the same neighbourhood to raise their children in those places. If you live outside that place, then to commute daily and several times during the night, whenever you are on call is not safe.
2. New york, Chicago, Philadelphia, New jersey, Connecticut programs (places with mixed population): if your patient population is mixed, then they also prefer doctors of mixed populations as well, e.g., New York has a huge Indian/Pakistani population compared to other states of America. They prefer doctors in such hospitals of Indians/Pakistani descend so that the patients would be more open to them and also they won’t need a separate interpreter for patient communication in Hindi/Urdu language.
3. Least friendly : Florida, Washington, Boston, similarly places with less immigrant population prefers less foreign doctors and hence, they make weird laws for residency application in that particular state for making it difficult for IMGs to get in. The number of interview calls are less from such states, even though the application is open for IMGs as well.
4. Check for the last 5 years matched residents (% of IMGs). Numbers never lie, so go to their website and see what they have done in the last few years. If they have IMGs matched in their program in the last five years, it means they are going to take them in the future as well. This thing will take time but trust me, it is worth looking for, some programs. Mention the names of the residents on their websites without their information about place of graduation. Don’t get fooled by Indian and Pakistani names, they could be AMGs.
5. Percentage of IMG faculty: IMG faculty is more aware of the medical school in India or Pakistan. They know what kind of medical school produces amazing medical graduates, so if they know a professor from your medical school well or they know that your medical school is one of the best in your country, they tend to persuade the program director to give you an interview call from that place and chances of you getting matched at that place is also very high.
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