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Foreign Medical School versus US Medical School



Education to be a medical doctor is expensive. It is estimated that during residency, student doctors who attended a public medical school is the US incur US $100,000 in debt while those who attended private medical school is at US $ 135,000. With foreign or off-shore medical schools offering way cheaper medical education, studying overseas for US citizens is becoming very attractive.

But expense is not the only issue. Low GPA and MCAT scores are also pushing aspirants to seek medical education elsewhere. This post seeks to examine the pros and cons of studying at foreign or offshore medical school as opposed to US medical schools. This is more on providing attractive alternatives for those wishing to pursue medicine.

If low on budget or low on GPA, the immediate choice would be to enroll in Caribbean medical school. For one, these schools offer clinical rotations in the US during the higher years.

Regardless of where you do your medical training, to practice in the US you will need to pass the USMLE Step 1, USMLE Step 2 and USMLE step 3 exams. It use to be that only foreign medical graduates had to take the clinical skills portion of USMLE step 2, but starting in the spring of 2005 everyone taking step 2 must take both the clinical skills and clinical knowledge portions of step 2.


One way of checking the credibility of a foreign school, IMED Faimer provides listing of foreign medical school.  Silliman University Medical School, which is  located in the Dumaguete City, Philippines, is included in the list along with Cebu Doctor's University College of Medicine.
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