11-03-2001, 03:25 AM
IMG
Residency Search Step by Step
First choose and commit to one or two specialties. Something you like, and maybe more importantly, something you will actually match in. This first step is most important to your chances.
1. Choose your Specialty. Go over these 2000 NRMP TABLES very carefully. These tables are an EXACT representation of what you will find in real life at your interviews. THOSE SPECIALTIES WITH RELATIVELY FEW OVERALL IMGs AND THOSE WITH HIGH US-GRAD NON-MATCH RATES WILL NOT BE GIVING OUT H1Bs! Actually you probably won't even make it to the interview for the visa issue to come up. PEOPLE WITH VISA ISSUES WILL NOT DO WELL IN SURGERY, OPHTHALMOLOGY, RADIOLOGY, ER, DERMATOLOGY, etc. They might not even deal with any IMG student period. All primary care stuff is currently going down in popularity, radiology back to extremely competitive, anesthesiology will soon be super competitive (matched only17% a few years ago, 80+% this year). Look at # ranks per spot, % IMGs per specialty, other trends. I believe my results are specific to anesthesiology, which would also represent other specialties with similar number of IMGs. I never considered going into family practice or IM no matter what, so I don't know much about them, but obviously lots of IMGs there. I would love to see how many interviews I'd get applying to Radiology, which I almost did before running out of money for ERAS. But I'm sure the answer is "not too many", this specialty is turning away qualified American grads, why on earth would it bother with the headache of sponsoring people for H1? OK, every year a bunch of IMGs get radiology or surgery, maybe even on H1B - but the overall point still stands: YOUR CHANCES ARE MUCH LOWER IN THE MORE COMPETITIVE SPECIALTIES.
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2. Visit all the following links to get a clear idea of which states and hospitals are sponsoring H1Bs and/or are IMG-friendly. It is utterly useless to continue with the steps below this one if you skip this, because most places don't deal with H1s (or IMGs period), and you are wasting your time thinking about them. These lists are geared to internal medicine. A lot of these places are truly last resort only ? not very nice to work in. The lists of Caribbean-affiliated hospitals should be useful too. Again the places I had success in weren't on any IMG-friendly lists, and lots of places I thought sponsored H1B actually didn't, so calling is the only way. The best states are definitely Illinois, Michigan, PA, some places in Florida and TX and CT. Not much in the deep south, or NorthWest. New York is full of IMGs. Many states have severe licensing problems for residency e.g. KY and LA and TN (and PA), watch out. ALL THESE LISTS WERE MADE BY OTHER PEOPLE.
IMG Friendly Hospitals List
Another One
Another One, includes H1B
More Hospitals: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; some mistakes on these lists regarding H1 sponsorship.
List of H1B hospitals This one is actually right on the money.
Yet another H1B IM residencies list. Claims to be exhaustive and recently checked.
AUC Residencies
SABA Residencies
St. George's Residencies 1997-1999
SGUSOM residencies By STATEÂ (I made this list)
SGUSOM Residencies 2000
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3. Go to FREIDA to get an idea of what programs are out there, how big they are, look at their websites.
4. Go to NRMP to see which programs (and how many spots each) participate in the Match March 15 (You will have to register with NRMP first). At this point you will notice that many IMG hospitals listing lots of spots in FREIDA will have none or few spots going thru the NRMP match - this is because they fill these pre-match and don't list them with NRMP. Just from personal experience precious few residents at Lutheran NY, Maryland General or St Josephs Pontiac MI go thru the match, and these places list very few position
Residency Search Step by Step
First choose and commit to one or two specialties. Something you like, and maybe more importantly, something you will actually match in. This first step is most important to your chances.
1. Choose your Specialty. Go over these 2000 NRMP TABLES very carefully. These tables are an EXACT representation of what you will find in real life at your interviews. THOSE SPECIALTIES WITH RELATIVELY FEW OVERALL IMGs AND THOSE WITH HIGH US-GRAD NON-MATCH RATES WILL NOT BE GIVING OUT H1Bs! Actually you probably won't even make it to the interview for the visa issue to come up. PEOPLE WITH VISA ISSUES WILL NOT DO WELL IN SURGERY, OPHTHALMOLOGY, RADIOLOGY, ER, DERMATOLOGY, etc. They might not even deal with any IMG student period. All primary care stuff is currently going down in popularity, radiology back to extremely competitive, anesthesiology will soon be super competitive (matched only17% a few years ago, 80+% this year). Look at # ranks per spot, % IMGs per specialty, other trends. I believe my results are specific to anesthesiology, which would also represent other specialties with similar number of IMGs. I never considered going into family practice or IM no matter what, so I don't know much about them, but obviously lots of IMGs there. I would love to see how many interviews I'd get applying to Radiology, which I almost did before running out of money for ERAS. But I'm sure the answer is "not too many", this specialty is turning away qualified American grads, why on earth would it bother with the headache of sponsoring people for H1? OK, every year a bunch of IMGs get radiology or surgery, maybe even on H1B - but the overall point still stands: YOUR CHANCES ARE MUCH LOWER IN THE MORE COMPETITIVE SPECIALTIES.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Visit all the following links to get a clear idea of which states and hospitals are sponsoring H1Bs and/or are IMG-friendly. It is utterly useless to continue with the steps below this one if you skip this, because most places don't deal with H1s (or IMGs period), and you are wasting your time thinking about them. These lists are geared to internal medicine. A lot of these places are truly last resort only ? not very nice to work in. The lists of Caribbean-affiliated hospitals should be useful too. Again the places I had success in weren't on any IMG-friendly lists, and lots of places I thought sponsored H1B actually didn't, so calling is the only way. The best states are definitely Illinois, Michigan, PA, some places in Florida and TX and CT. Not much in the deep south, or NorthWest. New York is full of IMGs. Many states have severe licensing problems for residency e.g. KY and LA and TN (and PA), watch out. ALL THESE LISTS WERE MADE BY OTHER PEOPLE.
IMG Friendly Hospitals List
Another One
Another One, includes H1B
More Hospitals: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; some mistakes on these lists regarding H1 sponsorship.
List of H1B hospitals This one is actually right on the money.
Yet another H1B IM residencies list. Claims to be exhaustive and recently checked.
AUC Residencies
SABA Residencies
St. George's Residencies 1997-1999
SGUSOM residencies By STATEÂ (I made this list)
SGUSOM Residencies 2000
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Go to FREIDA to get an idea of what programs are out there, how big they are, look at their websites.
4. Go to NRMP to see which programs (and how many spots each) participate in the Match March 15 (You will have to register with NRMP first). At this point you will notice that many IMG hospitals listing lots of spots in FREIDA will have none or few spots going thru the NRMP match - this is because they fill these pre-match and don't list them with NRMP. Just from personal experience precious few residents at Lutheran NY, Maryland General or St Josephs Pontiac MI go thru the match, and these places list very few position