During your journey to becoming a doctor, you will hear a great deal about the MCAT -- and for good reason. The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) was developed by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to serve as a metric to determine one's potential and future performance at medical school.

Unless you are very fortunate and you have someone funding your medical school dreams, it's likely that you'll wonder how to finance your medical school education.

This article has been updated to provide the greatest relevance & timeliness for our readers. It was originally published August 2017.

As prospective medical students consider their options for where to go to med school, many wonder how much their choice will actually impact their future as a doctor. 

Each year, the National Residency Match Program (NRMP) residency director survey demonstrates that the school a candidate attended is a remarkably low priority in their decision making process. In the most recent report findings, a candidate's medical school didn't even make the top 20 factors when considering an applicant for an interview invitation! 

On its surface, the NRMP survey implies that whatever medical school you choose to attend is irrelevant; as long as you absorb the material and can perform when evaluated on exams, in front of preceptors, etc., that's all that matters.

However, it's crucial to consider that while, on the surface, it may look like your medical school doesn't matter, the learning environment cultivated by that school, and how it has specifically prepared you for a career in medicine, can be the single biggest factor in your success. 

Medical students don't thrive in a vacuum. They need a curriculum, faculty, support structure, living environment, extra-curricular opportunity, even a student body, that is shaped to help them succeed. A school doesn't just provide information, it should help students develop on a personal level into the sort of physician a residency director wants on their team and, ultimately, caring for their community.

In this post, we'll examine factors that the NRMP does consider to be important factors in a residency candidate and how the medical school you attend can help to cultivate and improve your results across each metric. 

This article has been updated to provide the greatest relevance & timeliness for our readers. It was originally published June 2018.

Previously, DO and MD residencies have been matched in separate processes. In 2020, they merged into a single program. Today we're going to dive into what that actually means for MD students, specifically Trinity and its graduates. 

But first, let's cover the basics. There is a myth out there that international medicine graduates, or IMGs, will have a more difficult time in the match now because more US trained DO students will be applying for the same residencies. This is verifiably false. In fact, the opposite is true. MD students of any kind, including Caribbean medical school graduates, will have a better opportunity to match after the merge. 

With that baseline understanding set, let's get into the specifics of the merger and what it means for med students. 

This article has been updated to provide the greatest relevance & timeliness for our readers. It was originally published January 2019.

There are a lot of spectacular reasons to earn a master's degree. From personal academic enrichment to general career planning, all the way down to specific job requirements, graduate degrees are a viable path to expertise and growth. A master's degree is not, however, a requirement to practice medicine, nor even a recommendation. Despite this, they have become a begrudgingly common method for attempting to pad a GPA after a difficult US or Canadian medical school admissions process.

Before deciding if a master's degree before medical school is right for you, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What Are Your Personal and Professional Goals?

2. What Are the Pre-Reqs for Med School?

3. How Does Your Graduate School GPA Affect Your Medical School Prospects?

4. What Are The Financial Implications of a Master's Degree for Med School?

5. What Do Med School Students & Alumni Think of Getting a Master's Degree Before Medical School?

6. Will a Master's Degree Delay Your Medical Education & Career?

In this article, we're going to look at the pros and cons of getting a master's degree before medical school, dig into some data, talk to our students, and offer some insight into why it may not be what it's cracked up to be and what other options may be out there for you.

Many prospective students are just starting to learn about Caribbean medical education. They aren’t aware of the similarities or differences to studying at home, or even what it means to be an international medical graduate (IMG) practicing in the United States and Canada.

Today, we’re going get into all the ways a Caribbean med school is a viable path, if not even a great choice, for students that want to practice back home.

Before we get started, let’s get into why offshore medical schools even exist. In as simple of terms as possible, the demand for doctors simply cannot be met by US schools alone.

How it all started:

"An email arrived inviting med students to join the State of Georgia’s Medical Reserve Corps (MRC). The MRC is an organization of doctors, nurses, PAs, EMTs, and med students who are the first medical boots on the ground for disasters in Georgia. They establish mobile hospitals and provide medical care. With extra time in isolation, I signed up and shortly received a notice for locations at food banks available to students. I requested an assignment, received my orders, and deployed the next day to serve for two weeks."

It goes without saying that COVID-19 has had an enormous impact on our world. One of the most impacted spaces is the medical field. Doctors at hospitals around the world are on the front lines and coping with a situation many hoped they would never see. 

Why Canadian Students Travel South for Medical School

The beginning of medical school is the start of a new adventure for students across the globe.  In Canada an astonishing 81% of med school applicants - many of whom would make phenomenal physicians- found themselves rejected at home. So, a large percentage of those Canadian applicants without a seat look abroad—most of them to the Caribbean. 

Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote, “It is easy to be wise after the event.” This holds especially true for medical school. While in the throes of the first year, many medical students can feel like they are in a whirlwind of exams, clinicals, and classes. However, many graduating medical students look back and see how a few different actions could have made things much easier.