Should I Apply to a Medical School Outside the United States?
Answer from Dr. Joan Downey, course director for Biology 265: Experiences in the Life Sciences and coordinates clinical courses for undergraduates at WUSM such as PEMRAP I, II:
“The only students I think that attending medical school in their home country of citizenship makes sense is the international student attending college in the US who might be able to apply to their country’s medical schools while simultaneously applying to the US medical school, since the statistics of acceptance to a US medical school are so challenging (~300 non-US citizens of 20,000 total accepted to US medical school per year). The European pathway is straight from high school for 6 years, and graduating from a US college may not dovetail well with their curriculum.
If you are a US citizen, I have never recommended applying to a non-US medical school for reasons that you invite additional significant challenges to practice in the USA unless you have had at least 2-3 well done (not suboptimal) unsuccessful applications to US MD and/or DO medical school.
You will be a foreign-trained medical graduate and you will be required to take (and be at the top % of your class) the three-part board exams to be considered by US residencies (and likely the TOEFL-English exam).
As a foreign-trained graduate, there will not be a uniform acceptance of your training and each state board decides what part of your clinical training you will need to repeat (even if you complete a US residency in full) if you decide to specialize in a fellowship. If you come back for fellowship in the US, you may have to repeat 1-2 years of residency (this is a step back) after completing a US fellowship for licensure.
Increasingly you may not get back into a residency in the US. About 10 years ago the medical schools were asked to increase their class size by ~10% and most have; however, the funding for residencies was not increased and therefore the number of residency slots were not increased. As US medical graduates finish medical school, they are getting the priority for residency slots. You cannot be a practicing physician without a residency. Foreign medical school graduates historically in the past went to smaller non-academic residencies due to the difficulty in understanding/translating their training to US curriculum accreditation expectations.”
If you are an International student:
See the Medical School Admission Requirements™ (MSAR®) for Applicants (aamc.org) online guide for a list of US and Canadian medical schools that can accept international citizens.