Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by rscho 1874 days ago
The question is not "when do you leave school?" it's actually "when are you employable as an independent practitioner?". In my personal experience, it's _much_ easier to get an attending/private practice position in the US at a younger age. Just because the country is huge and lots of places lack docs, probably. Of course, that's my experience and I could be wrong.
1 comments

Just because there is a Dr shortage in the US due to having a limited number of medical schools, there are still thousands of students who get their degree and can't find a residency:

>.... The matching challenge comes as the U.S. faces a physician shortage. The nation could be short as many as 139,000 physicians by 2033, according to the Times, which cites Association of American Medical Colleges data. Despite this shortage, thousands of medical school graduates are consistently rejected from residency experience, rendering their MD or DO "virtually useless," according to the report.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-physician-rel...

That must be understood in the context of the number of applicants to U.S. residency programs from Caribbean medical schools (which are well-known to be a little predatory).

From that article you cited: International medical graduates in particular have low match rates for residency programs. American medical students have a 94 percent match rate, according to the Times, which cites information from the National Resident Matching Program. However, Americans who study at international medical schools have a match rate of 61 percent."

Kids from the U.S. get sold on a Caribbean M.D. school, and spend thousands and thousands of dollars only to find out that things get really complicated when it comes time to do clerkship rotations or apply to residency.

An M.D. or a D.O. from a school on U.S. soil is definitely not useless, and your chances at matching a residency are extremely high, as cited above.