Foreign Medical Study - Page 3
to license physicians; (4) successfully passing
the complete licensure examination in any
state or licensing jurisdiction where a full and
unrestricted license is issued upon satisfac-
tory completion of internship or residency
without further examination; and (5) an
approach that is especially popular among one
segment of foreign medical students, and is
for obvious reasons known as the Fifth Pathway,
which is discussed in the next section.
Among the drawbacks of attending a foreign
medical school is the difficulty in
securing a residency appointment at a U.S.
hospital upon graduation. A substantial num-
ber of Americans, after investing much effort,
time, and money, are unable to secure a
residency in this country due to a variety of
reasons. First, they may have received a
poor medical education at the school they
elected to attend, which seriously weakens
their candidacy for postgraduate training.
Second, they are competing against other for-
eign graduates for the very limited number of
places not filled by graduates of U.S.
schools. Finally, the total number of residency
openings is diminishing in response to
the perceived over-supply of physicians that is
anticipated. Consequently, the awareness
of this potential problem in the educational
program of foreign medical students should
stimulate careful consideration of this career
pathway.
FIFTH PATHWAY OPPORTUNITIES
Students who have completed all of the formal
requirements of the foreign medical
school except internship and/or social service
may substitute a year of supervised clini-
cal training for the required foreign
internship (that is, clinical clerkship or junior
intern-
ship) under the direction of an AMA-approved
medical school. Upon successful com-
pletion, students may enter the first year of
an approved residency program without
having to complete the social service
requirement of the foreign country. Before begin-
ning the supervised clinical training, students
must have their academic records
reviewed and approved by the school supervising
the clinical training and must pass a
screening examination acceptable to the Council
on Medical Education. The ECFMG
examination and/or Step 1 of the USMLE are used
for this purpose.
Currently only mainland U.S. medical schools
offer Fifth Pathway clerkships. This
option applies primarily to students in Mexican
medical schools and is open only to
physicians who have completed their
undergraduate premedical studies in an acceptable
manner at an accredited American college or
university. The Fifth Pathway program
allows U.S. students who have completed the
requirements for a medical degree in Mex-
ico to be eligible for a continuous academic
year of supervised clinical training under the
direction of a medical school approved by the
Liaison Committee on Medical Education.
The students who complete this supervised
clinical training are then able to enter an
AMA-approved graduate training program without
completing the Mexican-required
internship or social science obligation. This
program facilitates graduates of Mexican
medical schools to pass into graduate medical
programs in this country. The following
schools are associated with this Fifth Pathway
program. They give preference to state
residents. Inquiries should be addressed to the
directors of these programs.
University of Arizona
College of Medicine
Tucson, AZ 85724
(Arizona residents only)
University of California, Irvine
California College of Medicine
Irvine, CA 92717
(Preference for California
Residents)
Loma Linda University
School of Medicine
Loma Linda, CA 92354
(Out of state residents
discouraged)
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