I'm currently a medical student in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I was thinking about persuing a medical residency in Australia or Canada. Can anyone tell me what do I have to do? I'm still a 4th year ( of 6 years) student and I really want to start to do whatever it takes to to get in a medical residency program in Australia and Canada.

Good luck!

You have picked the two hardest countries to do a residency in!!! You can not do a residency in either country unless you are a citizen or permenant resident. Both make it very hard for outsiders to get residencies in...even some Canadian citizens who have gone overseas give up.

But if you insist on entertaining this thought this is what u have to do:

Canada

Apply for immigration to Canada. Go to Canada, write the MCCEE, QQ1 and try and match with the second round of CaRMS....good luck though there are very few spots left over (usually just family medicine) and there are just under a thousand ppl. competiting with them...the match rate is under 10% for most years.

www.carms.ca

Australia

Apply for immigration (which you will not get as a doctor since it's no longer in the skilled occupations list)....so that's the end of the story.

- unless you find an Australian girl and marry her...then you can go about it this way:

Complete one year internship, and apply for a residency position in the field you are interested in. But again beware they give preference to their own grads...and very few foreigners get into the system....(without having done a residency overseas...!)


Cheers.

Well, it's hard to do what we really want!! I thought these countries, mostly Canda were pretty "nice"with foreigners!!heheh
People told me that the US medical residency program is not good for me because their trainning is completely different from the rest of the world and if I get in there I have to live there after my residency because Brazil does not accept their trainning. I don't know if this is true or not!! Do you know anything about it? Where are you from? Canada?
Thanks a lot Andre

Hello,

yah I'm from Canada but I'm studying in Australia...that's why I posted about those two specific countries being difficult...because I know how tough those systems are (and I'm a Canadian citizen)...for you it's even more difficult since you dont' have a citizenship/Permenant residency in either country

As for the US...yes a lot of countries will not accept US training. Mainly because the US training for most specialties is significantly shorter than that for other countries. There are quite a few American doctors here working in underserved areas as temporary doctors who will never be able to get fellowship and who may be asked to leave at any time.

They have been looking for other places to work, but haven't had any luck yet.

I suggest you look into the UK as this is probably your best bet...I'm not sure how similiar it is to Brazil, but at least you will be able to go to other countries to practice after you're done.

best of luck.

I guess the question is what can you do with an Australian degree if you are not Australian? Evidently, there are some internships for foreign graduates of Australian schools in NSW. Then what? What are the numbers? At PGY1? PGY2? PGY3? Does anyone ever get home to Canada or the US? If an educational program is marketed in the US, is there recourse under US commercial code? Are there any requirements for disclosure? There is a need here for good hard facts. Question every claim. (It may need to be be qualified by "in the southern Hemisphere" or even "in the Sydney metro area".) Be wary of sales pitches.

I suspect there is a wide variation of quality among Australian programs and prospects for foreign graduates of these programs. Make sure you evaluate your goals and consider whether the program you are considering will allow you to achieve those goals.

I am thinking of writing a book on my experience here.

If you don't manage to obtain an Australia PR there is still plenty you can do with the Australian degree. You can use it in New Zealand if you get a PR there...you can still use it in the UK though now you will be required to write the PLAB. You can also use it in Canada to enter the second round of CaRMS if you are a Canadian citizen or you can use it in the US.

My school has been able to place 100% of the people that have wanted to stay (internationals) with internships. That is probably no different than most of the other schools outthere. As of a couple years ago there was also a new visa the 422 medical practioner visa that was created to allow international students to stay. If you are in Sydney then you will undoubtedly have a more difficult time in getting a residency. All states give preference to internationals who have graduated from that particular state before internationals from other states. NSW is not exactly known for having a large surplus of internships because it is a popular location for locals. But you should have done your research on this before you chose to attend sydney. That is the problem though with most North Americans. They tend to go for a large city b/c of the comforts and pretty much rule out staying here (without much difficultly). Conversly you will also have a harder time getting a PR since sydney is not a rural area nor is it experiencing a shortage of doctors.

As for your assertion that there is a wide variety in the quality of Australian programs I think you know that Australia is not the US. All programs are governmentally regulated and there is a central body (AMC) that has direct control on the education. The quality of the programs here are pretty much equal. Perhaps the quality of the students may vary from school to school...but you can be assured that the programs are equal in terms of quality.

Anyway if you need any help in terms of PR or any of the new visas for internship I'd be happy to help you out.

hi all...well i have graduated from Egypt , faculty of medicine in cairo university ( im telling such informations lol coz its my 1st time i write msg here and i would like to greet all .. lol ) well if as u telling that residency in australia is almost impossible , could u tell me wot they sit AMC examinations for ? ( just wanna know more about it , if any of you got any clue ) take care all and im happy joining this Site
alaa

You have to sit the AMC examinations so that you are treated equally to an Australian grad. There is an Egyptian grad who is doing a Plastics residency here (in Tasmania) but it was not easy at all for him to get that position. Also his wife is Australian that's how he got the PR.

lol . well thx for answering me , but i dunno ur msg shows that only coz he got married to an aussie woman , he could work .. cheers all
alaa

Yeah getting a PR without doing ur medical education in Australia is really difficult for foreign docs. but this may not be the case as they get a shortage of docs...it's only the case right now. They might change the laws within the next couple of years.

Best of luck