"Realism" or "well meant" or "ignorant" : whatever is said let it be from 1st hand experience!
Exactly what StepTaker said! There are no fast track residencies, its a Gen surg residency and then 3 yrs for a cardio thoracic fellowship. As an old IMG to even get a prelim surgery IV, you'll meed not just high Step scores but US surgery LORs and contacts in programs.
Your Indian experience wont have much of an advantage, plus you'll also need a visa. You are better off trying to get a research fellowship and use it to get into the system. Still not a guarantee, but at least it will help you establish contacts.
Wow! Lena/ Step taker, you guys advise as though you sit on the selection committees interviewing for integrated CT and Vascular Programs.
I do apologise to be so blunt but the fact remains that when a committed and qualified IMGs asks for guidance (like for instance Ananda, the old IMG who is a CT surgeon from India), the advice given to many of them appears to be consistently lopsided bordering on pessimism (dismal, disappointing, bleak and discouraging) on the pretext or good intention of being realistic.
Plenty of popular opinions fly around in these forums and what really helps anyone joining this forum for advice is from 1st hand experience!
All surgical specialties are challenging to break into, some more than others (always been so from dawn of Surgery: from students of Sushrutha till we put a man on mars! it doesn't surprise me). A bit more challenging for IMGs in the US, so what?
Let me break a couple of popular myths flying around
1.Old IMGs (> 10 yrs) getting IV calls to cat programs in Surgery is next to impossible, unless you have x,y,z. Many programs may exclude old IMGs generally but that is a program specific issue. We all need to break this box standard frog in the well thinking. No 2 IV candidates are the same.
2. You certainly DONT need contacts to get IVs (although your chances increase if you do).
3. Research experience is critical for matching (although desirable).For instance, one may make up for his lack of research with clinical training, experience, teaching experience, awards etc etc......
I have first hand experience of making it to
multiple IVs into programs I had no connections whatsoever, didn't even know where they were geographically (we are talking about 5 year integrated programs). God knows if I will match, but having made it to multiple General Surgery and multiple 5 year integrated programs thus far, I can confidently advice Ananda "Go, all out for it man!"
Don't waste your time applying for dedicated research fellowships and with your clinical background all you need is a paper or two and this is something you can always achieve in an externship for a couple of months.
Ananda, my background is kind of similar to you (visa status, old IMG, General & CT surgeon ,no US LOR etc, only difference I have some publications and I am working in Europe) and I am quite happy to guide you if you contact me on skype (ID mark_usmle). I don't think it is necessary at this point for me to share publicly on this forum as to where I was interviewed etc (I have already shared enough on my profile on my background)... as we are not in a comparison race, but I am quite happy to talk to you personally, so free to contact me. I feel you need some one to give you a pep talk and get your CV and statement in order. That is exactly what you need. All the best!