Every single school rejected me. In the end I would recommend anyone to opt for a US/DO school, then to reapply, then to really be sure you want to be a doctor before going to these schools (AUC, SGU, Ross, AUA, Saba). Beyond that, my understanding is that SGU (the oldest and most established program) now has some type of accreditation issue so that program is no longer a legitimate option. They have great resources and a few really great professors that truly do care about you and your education. In my first semester, I was so sad to be away from home I barely passed my first midtermsbut that was a wake-up call for me to work harder which I did. Also, you can ask the faculty to hook you up with a few ex-students who have matched (this is what I did) and honestly it was their advice I let sink in my head more than the negatives. I am currently in limbo with applying to Ross Univ. In short, study hard, dont be awkward, and suck it up on the island. Upon reflection research, AUA did not uphold the accreditation standards they were mandated to uphold. Classrooms are small, and cramped, and the computer lab has about 20 computers and maybe only 12 work. There is no paradise type of country, there is only us in the world, a world we should make better. Dominica is a very underdeveloped island so its important to know what you are getting yourself into. In fact, some are pure dumb asses. The ugly truth about Caribbean medical schools, Add your comment below or scroll down to read Students are used to having brilliant or at least decent professors. PSS As a student, employed in the International Student Office and a Test Monitor I caught numerous now nothing is done. I laugh at situations just wondering how I made it, because its a strategy that releases burdens life threw or throws. The problem is that everyone who makes it that far is not necessarily dedicated to being the best they can be at what they do, and that is the point where we get bad Doctors, not because the schools are terrible, but because the students themselves are many times not highly motivated to be the best. I know that a lot of great doctors come from my school. I did a 1 year post-bacc program after undergrad and ended up with a 3.65 and still I knew my chances were low. Do not let the bad experiences of some influence your future. I love my school and I am very grateful for this opportunity. Thank You for this message. Simple as that. Think about the Caribbean life, and residency, and being a physician. Im jealous. If you have emotional issues, are easily distracted, not used to adversity, get lonely easily, need extra support, etc.. None of the facilities are amazing, but you actually can live with a hot plate and microwave without starving. MAKE THEM! It might be primary care but you will be an MD as opposed to maybe going to PA school or some other area of healthcare. Our school placed a random selection of students in a motel 5 miles from campus. Its a nightmare, I attended Noreste in Tampico in the early Eighties. Recently my sis talked to be about almost quitting residency again.. but her husband convinced her otherwise. Unless a path is handed to you, its going to be a battlefield. Since the area of research has increasing become narrower and narrower, and the focus has become primarily molecular, the benefit of having research based experts is increasingly questionable. Am I breezing through school of course not. (It WASin Many ways.) All of the disappointments. It is stressful but it is ALL ABOUT WHAT YOU PUT INTO IT!!!! I also understand that loans are not as easy to get for foreign med schools. Return from Saba medical school to Medical School Insider. I believe the wonderful weather and beaches around make our anxiety levels to go down. I hope this helps encourage your some. Since I am unable to get into a US medical school, I am applying to SGU. Do your own research, if thousands have come through the school and became doctors, why cant you? I went to SGU and withdrew in my second semester education was just really bad. I know they have been open for 20 years. What school did they graduate from? If you wanted to be a dermatologist and got a 230 on Step, it is the equivalent of saying good luck knowing you, you will not be able be a dermatologist.Maybe internal medicine is good for you! All in all, that is how it is. Of course a lot of people are accepted. Saba University School of Medicine is a relatively new school that was first established in 1992. corrupt physicans/practices that may hire you. A 3.0 GPA is unimpressive and can easily get lost in the shuffle of competition with higher-graded students. By semester 3 they were down to 29, and in the end, only 17 graduated from that batch. I am a local of the island where my school is located, so due to cheaper tuition, not having to worry about housing or adaptation to a foreign place etc. what school are you going to? Students at my school must teach themselves what they need to know. Which is disappointing to hear. And dont get me started on how they ALWAYS end up misplacing someones exam grades so that through NO fault of theirs (the student), they must end up repeating the entire course/ semester (and having to pay for it too). You learn to be kind, so that even the person that you thought hated you picks you up when you are rushing to class. The University of the West Indies provides high quality, fully accredited medical degrees that have been approved by the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA) of the United States. Since were older, thats why he is going th carib route. They will never be the US. This is my second year and so far my school has showed a lot of support for us. All of them are doing just fine.. Bullcrap. Need help? My son studys 15 yo 17 hour days. Anyways, the school built their own dorm. I went through a horrible divorce and lost my family. My parents made me register my car legally. This is not undergraduate, welcome to the majors. That is why Caribbean medical schools offer an alternative. You are doing a great job. We actively search for resources to help fill in the gaps our school leaves. The other big schools with federal loan programs do not take transfers, or they do but with USMLEs which I never took. There are terrible emotional and financial consequences when informed consent is lacking as these idealistic humanitarians forge ahead off shore toward their medical degrees. I think it is a huge red flag when even some of your professors are telling you that they feel bad that we the students are being put up through all that. He said that the thing he liked is that SABA gave him the chance to become a physician in the United States. Technically, you do not even need medical school to pass your NBMEs and Step 1 3. The school also offers workshops on different areas as test taking skills, how to deal with anxiety and depression, and how to study for a specific subject. We have excellent professors, as we also have professors who are not the greatest (very few). Secondly, every single book in the library is outdated. After reading your post you are insinuating that the school is closing down??!!!!! However, they then added more seating and increased their use of the alternative learning track called ITI (basically allows students to learn in small groups instead of attending a traditional lecture.) PERIOD! By 2030, according to a study commissioned by the Association of American Medical Colleges, the United States will be short at least forty thousand doctors, and perhaps as many as a hundred thousand. SABA University School of Medicine is a good medical school located in the Caribbean islands. My starting class began with 1100 students, we are down to 650, meaning 59 percent of my class that I started the first day here with are still here to finish off our second year. Saba University makes it possible for students to earn their degree in under 4 years, spending 20 months studying Basic Sciences on the campus in Saba, completing an 8-week research module and returning to the U.S. or Canada for 72 weeks of clinical rotations. The others that leave really do just get sick of the abuse and the stress and just zone out. even after a couple of years down the line and ive made a career and life doing something else. Extreme measures much? Are you real? But at the end of the day it comes down to motivation. You might stand your mouth is open in surprise; while some people just say ah, its just the way how things are around here. Ive heard so many disappointing stories from hard-working students, many of which participate in student government or other volunteer groups whose goal is to add value to SJSM and the students. Finally, in my experience, the costs of medical school are far beyond what they really need to be. I feel that a lot of what was said above is a gross exaggeration. For students who are really struggling to get into medical schools at home, due to super competitive requirements, it could be a solid option. The Dept of Education would not accredit these schools if attrition was that high, and they definitely would not qualify to receive federal funding. I hope you dont treat your patients that way! I went to SGU so I will offer my opinion if it helps you. Let me stay focused on the Caribbean ones. The Caribbean is more like playing the lottery. That means roughly 60% of the students were rejected. If you really want to be a doctor you will go anyway. (some after repeating terms) (all carry huge amounts of burdensome debt, often financed through the US Federal Loan program), b. If we dont achieve 80% attendance, the school may or may not discount some percentage of your grade (1%-5%) but it is an exaggeration that a student automatically fails the semester for not achieving the 80% attendance. My advice, from my heart of hearts, and which I can only give in good conscience, is that you absolutely should not attend Saba University School of Medicine. There are foreign nationals who also compete for the limited number of seats. As a provider you have no opportunities to change a system that has been designed by non-medical bureaucrats. NBME comprehensive first time pass rate (The school requires that you pass this before you can write the USMLE): ~ 8% Sgu curriculum built that way. This is a very interesting post. Around 30K+ doctors did not get residency last year. People are going to give you both what you deserve and what you dont deserve. At Caribbean medical schools, the cost of tuition can often be steep. Meanwhile, the cost of medical school has skyrocketed; the median student debt for the class of 2016 was a hundred and ninety thousand dollars. You have to be really open to surprises if you want to take a journey to a Caribbean school. Are you a future physician or not; and how are you going to get there? Depends what you want to do. I have friends who are in medical school there right now but the professors note is from 2005. I only read 1/4 of what you wrote. Forthcoming film will start the long overdue conversation about HOW we treat and train our healers: http://donoharmfilm.com/. Its equipped with a nice and big gym that is located in front of the schools beach. Saba is not currently subject to the jurisdiction of and thus has not received authorization from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education. Would you recommend that. Hello, Thinking Med school. They are for-profit and that lends itself to weeding out a large portion of the class. I lost 200k at SGU and they didnt care. Windsor School of Medicine is of the reputable medical schools from the same region and has been producing health care professionals for years. Even if you are a good student, there is no guarantee that you will graduate or match. I did well but still the rude awakening of seeing how all they care about is the money and not the student was the straw that broke the camels back. I met with my seniors who are passing out from this university and have settled in their careers at a high level. Preparation leads to perfection and Sabas results are comparable with the top medical school programs in the country.European accreditation: Because Saba is a Dutch island, Saba is accredited by the Netherlandsmaking it the only medical school in the Caribbean held to high European standards. In some instances, SJSM will have an instructor that practiced medicine in the US. I assume things have either changed drastically between this persons class and mine, or they have a very skewed perspective. Your author here started without information and had not realized how stacked was/is the deck and what is the numbers game. Sadly, medicine as we know it today, is a business from start to finish. 100%USMLE Step 1 Exam first-time pass rate (2021)- a consistently strong performance. For example- can you go a day or two without showering in your apartment because theres a water outage? They have excellent facilities and high tech. Being a doctor is not just having an MD, but knowing how to handle your own life; and how to heal from ups and downs so that you can be an inspiration of healing other people in pain. 2) The island is unreasonably difficult to live on. There was nothing left to go back to. Although the average applicant brings in 1500 hours after undergrad. You sound like you were paid to say this. The worst thing that I could say is witnessing someone die young; and realizing how life is short. I had a medical condition that required hospitalization. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. I graduated from a Caribe school(Dom Republic) a long time ago at the onset of the surge of schools. I wish I had the hindsight before I went into undergraduate school to pursue a pre-med education. Thus these Schools must force these excessive students ( much like the over-booked flights) thru one means or the other resulting in a attrition rates as high as 40%. Learn more, about Canadian Applicants. This isnt a problem in and of itself. Residency, University of Washington, 2014 Graduate. Yet, they can effectively describe complex concepts such as cardiac pharmacology and explain to you and their parents about beta blockers etc. Chemistry: one-year or inorganic and one year of organic chemistry with a lab component. It is an uphill road to become a surgeon via offshore med school though can be done with determination. Dont make things harder than they should be? I wont go into every detail, but SGUs Dept of Educational Services offers meets all throughout the week where students can learn the material that is being taught in class, in a smaller setting. Just facts. The government office gave us a Bad time with our student visas, to the point where we had to go in and out of the country with tourist passes during our rotation years. I worked at some of the largest medical schools in the country, MD and DO. I am also SGU student and this is very inaccurate and misleading. PLEASE ANYONE READING THIS POST SHARE IT. Please Jane, Im happy I found a Nigerian here. At the time, you work your ass off and you get a shot at getting residency back in the US. More than 25 years and 2,500+ successful graduates later . I am disappointed in the method that US Medical Schools select their students as I would bet on me against any US medical student out there. Intelligent people and the average joe have all fallen victim to such heinous practices. Zainab as a Caribbean native I must say that most if not all the Caribbean schools are owned and operated by foreign nationals. In 2016, she was accepted to a residency program in family medicine at a hospital in Hendersonville, North Carolina. After about a month the class will be down to 900 or so. I started with sgu in 1998. I dont know what this mean and to be frank, common sense tells me that if you have 40% over the student population to seat numbers, isnt building or expanding the library the logical sense? I am a third year of AUA student. Hence, I urge the many readers and exceptional pre-meds that have read the article you have brought forward to be informed but definitely not afraid to pursue their dream. This is the school I go to and will likely graduate with a degree from. If you want a warm and fuzzy feeling and are not used to fighting for what you want, instead of waiting for it, then medical school is not for you 3. Thanks! So long as profit is the main motive, it really doesnt matter where the medical school is located. If you worked hard and honestly you got through fine. Good luck! Had I not took care of my Taxes, Citizenship standing, I would have been required to pay 10,000USD donation for being an international student and a different tuition rate. At AUA, ROSS, AUC, SGU, etc. There are double standards in the way you will be treated in residency. Firstly if we talk about the pros of this university then here are the details, classes from 8am to 12pm. There are usually so many mistakes made by the inexperienced professors, the lecture becomes confusing and muddled. I think it is terrible though that they let a surplus of students in, many who really may not qualify, hence giving them false hopes and leaving them with a large debt. Only recently has an effort been made to redress the inadequate number of slots in US medical school, and whats being done is still not enough. OMG. Unbelievable. However, if you actually look at the faculty and their experience, the vast majority of them are highly qualified. The American students that apply for this school either 1. were not smart enough to get into a school in the United States or 2. were not working hard enough. None of that is good enough to get into a US medical school though. My school gave me the opportunity to study medicine, something that US medical schools didnt do for me. Phillip was impressed by his story, and by E.L.A.M.s philosophy of offering a free education for students who pledged to practice medicine in low-income, medically underserved areas. Many may think im settling, or taking the easy way.thats what my family tells me for choosing to go for a mid-level careerat the end of the day its about the legacy you leave and I choose to do that through my patients smiles and health outcomes and not by egotistical measuring sticks. there are also other factors that make a student decide on their school like the cost of tution. This is too much for some to handle and Im sure they struggle to get a position. So building stress handling skills in medical schools whether you study in US, or the tough Caribbeans, which also are the awesome beauty, is plus. We were about 5000 US/Canadian students alone. Even amongst my group of friends, I dont know a single person who has dropped out of SGU. 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