‘It’s Tough to Get Out’: How Caribbean Medical Schools Fail Their Students – The New York Times
The institutions are expensive, often operated for profit and eager to accept applicants. But graduates have trouble landing residencies and jobs.
Last summer, when Dr. Sneha Sheth went online to begin filling out applications for residency — the next stage of her training after medical school — she was hit with a jolt of disappointment.
Of the 500 residency programs she was considering, nearly half had been labeled unfriendly to international medical students, like her, by the website Match a Resident, which helps medical students abroad navigate the U.S. residency application process. Dr. Sheth submitted her applications in September and spent months on edge. Then came the distress of rejections from numerous programs, and no responses from others.
“There are 50 percent of programs that don’t want you, which is a scary feeling,” said Dr. Sheth, 28, who graduated recently from a Caribbean medical school. “It’s like, if they don’t want you, who will?”
The frustrations of the match process, which assigns graduates to programs where they can begin practicing medicine, made Dr. Sheth question whether she had been foolish to enroll in a Caribbean medical school. She had spent tens of thousands of dollars but ended up shut out of American residency programs (although she recently landed a spot in a Canadian one).