FMG, but US Citizen…what are my chances?
FMG-US citizens are statistically favored over non-US citizens.
(One of my readers brought up a good point (thank you!) regarding this subject a while ago, so I decided to shed some light on this topic.)
Now that medical school admissions is becoming really competitive, the recent trend is that pre-medical students apply to the Carribbean or other foreign medical schools. At the end of their education, they will be awarded an MD degree.
While it is true that DO applicants fare better in the US Allopathic Residency Match than foreign medical graduates (FMGs), FMGs who are US citizens fare better than those FMGs who are not. There are two reasons why this happens, that I can think of:
1. US residency directors know how competitive it is becoming to obtain admission to US medical schools. At the same time, these foreign medical schools are churning out more doctors over the years, and becoming more well established. So, these residency directors are probably considering that there are more well qualified applicants than there are medical school spots within the US, and with the rising quality of certain foreign medical schools, it could be plausible to give these new FMG-US citizens a shot.
2. The second reason why FMG-US citizens fare better than non-US citizens could be because there is a higher chance that a US citizen will continue to stay in the US and practice, rather than returning to his/her native country permanently. This helps increase the population of doctors in America, where we are currently experiencing a shortage of physicians.
This will conclude my MD/DO posts, unless readers have questions/comments for which I will compile additional posts. Thanks for reading!
