Is the situation for IMGs, better or worse than what it was before?
I mean with regard to residency matching.
A couple of years ago, when I was still a student planning my mle, I seemed to know a lot of seniors who took all the steps, and the next thing you know, they are on their way to start the residency! and some of them had very average scores. it just seemed a lot easier for people ( FMGs) who were matched 2-3 years ago.
Now, most of my friends who expect to be matched, ( even with very good scores), seem to be having a really hard time.
Is this just a co-incidence?
Let's start a poll and see what you think.
But also scroll down to steptaker post where he presented documented statistics from the NRMP, read that post before you respond to the poll.
Yes. I want to know this also. Has there been an increase or decrease of IMG intake? WHat I heard was that there has been an increase in total IMG intake, but the increase is due to increased intake of American-born IMG, not foreign IMG.
Perhaps, when the economy is good, more US parents send their kids to med school (as they can afford) so that after 5 years when they graduate the economy turns down again! Therefore, we see IMG difficulty when the economy is bad. This is just my theory, I have no documented evidence about it what so ever.
Yes the obama thing. I am not really sure not updated on what it's about but if i am not mistaken, the idea is that there will be more emphasis on primary care physicians. I wonder if this means more position for family practice but less positions in everything else.
OK the stats are showing it's beocme more difficult but I think there things that appeared in the last few years that greatly facilitated IMG matching
examples, companies like matcharesident was not there before
the more availability of Kaplan material
the better and more efficient UW questions
...etc
all these changes making the IMG preparation and then getting matched rather easier than before
The theory proposed by steptaker is not correct.
Because looking at the same graph that he refers to, we can see that US students have been consistently matching througout the years at 95%. So there's no fluctuation with the ecomony.
Yes, there's 95% US students accepted every year but what about the absolute number?
If for example let's say there are 100K residency position in the year 2009 and 100K US seniors applied then 95K of them will match and there left only 5K positions for IMGs to compete on. While if say 50K US students applied and 47.5K (95%) got matched then there will be 52.5K positions for IMGs to compete on which is significantly easier.
Remember we are talking about IMGs difficulty not US students difficulty.
With all those services such as MatchAResident and the tons of websites helping us find the easiest IMG friendly program and with US health care system still expanding and in need of more doctors and with less Americans interested in medicine I think our chances have gone better.
The fact that there's less percentage of IMG matched is because that NRMP data does not include the prematch.
Thousands of IMGs are being accepted through prematch and scramble.
In fact I don't know anyone who did not match, no matter how bad were the scores or who old they are.
let me make clear that recession is yet to affect health sector worldwide so we need not worry about that and indeed the no of img match decreasing may be because more people applying for the same and especially from the uk side since foreign students denied medical over there
It has definitely become more difficult than before, no doubt about that
More 99ers, more competition, more difficult Visa, more difficult exams, more stringent program criteria, .....etc
Early results of the 2010 match revealed that IMG matching percentage has declined further compared to 2009.
In 2009 the percentage was 43.7%, this year it's 42.4%
In the 2011 matching, the percentage of IMGs matched was 44.2% instead of last years 42.4%.
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