ACSOM - Caribbean Medical School (New!)

[Jonathan Whatley]

Medical school is expensive, that's why I created a spreadsheet for myself and the readers to compare the institutions... There are a few that are inexpensive, at less than 100K for all four years combined if you get scholarships.  Heck, there is one where you do the first two years online (IHUS), the second two years are onsite either at a teaching hospital in the US or UK, that MD offering is only 80K USD.  I would compare options and review success stories for each one that you are interested in... I found a few who actually succeeded in the recently defunct USAT who charged only $65,888 for the entire 4 years...

Offshore medical school gives ROI at or near zero if you don't subsequently

• obtain then complete a residency,
  
• including obtaining a residency training license from the state or states of residency,
  
• and obtain an unrestricted license to practice medicine on completion or residency or of post-residency fellowship training.
  

There is a very high risk that if you take foreign medical school with the first two years online, your path to a medical career will end by one of those points.

You would have a graduate degree in a biology subject from a foreign non-research school, which could have a bit of value in adjacent careers. But probably less value than a master's in biology you could have gotten in much less time, for a much lower cost, without relocating, and from a much more prestigious school.

The first cohorts of graduates of from this type of medical school might have gotten through the several hoops to unrestricted licensure through a sort of security through obscurity.

Since then, states have been tightening up their requirements, and they're free to tighten up their requirements further between now and the time you'd apply.

If you're a foreign medical school graduate applying for a license in the U.S., expect a good chance that to get a training or unrestricted license, the state medical board will audit your residential, travel, or visa history to determine that during preclinical training you lived in the country the medical school is in. Expect any exemptions for Covid are over.

I've heard many accounts of students saying choosing cut-rate foreign medical schools was the biggest mistake of their lives leading to career dead ends.

The foreign medical school market is a dangerous market in which to focus too much on tuition cost to the exclusion of other costs and to the exclusion of very different returns.

Of course, if you're choosing between two foreign medical schools both with odds of reaching licensure that are similar to each other and acceptable to you, and the cost difference is six figures, that could be your major determinant.

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I would compare options and review success stories for each one that you are interested in... I found a few who actually succeeded in the recently defunct USAT who charged only $65,888 for the entire 4 years...

Please also review failure stories and the risks of failure at several points on the path.

Remember that some impressive statistics in this market are massaged. "95% of our students passed the USMLE Step 1!" Yeah, but the school makes students sit weed-out tests before the USMLE Step 1 and gives many of those students failing grades and expulsion from the medical school.

Now those student have lost tuition, living expenses, and time, and even if they transfer to another school, they'll face tough odds of ever obtaining a residency: having failed out of a medical school is something residencies notice.

Some of those weeded-out students could have passed the USMLE Step 1, but the school didn't allow them to sit it.

I've often seen offshore medical schools fail to provide straight up and well composed numbers documenting how many students attrit under what circumstances at what times. I have heard hand-waving spin about how some students spend all their time on the beach, but you wouldn't do that, no. It's not that simple. It appears that it's not uncommon for a hard-working, generally competent student to attrit out of these schools.

There are circumstances under which one of the better offshore medical schools is a good choice for a student. It's a stretch, but I can imagine circumstances where a less-established offshore medical school is a decent choice. But potential students should think critically and should focus on a lot more than tuition cost.

Medical school should almost be called pre-med part II. Medical school really doesn't do much on its own without admission into residency, completion of residency, and receipt of an unrestricted license from a state medical board.