Basic Science Research as an IMG MD

[PreMed74]

How hard is it to become a basic science researcher with an MD from a reputable (i.e. California approved) Carribean school and no residency?

[DrPG]

Its doable but probably best for you if you dont already have one, to get a masters at the least in a similar field.

[PreMed74]

So would I theoretically be able to get a research faculty position in biology at an American university (with, say, some post-doc research esperience and/or an MA) or are faculty positions mostly reserved for US grads? What about pharmaceutical company research?

[houmd]

Reasearch faculty is usually limited to PhD's with post-docs

[Riften]

It's the best if you have done basic science research during medical school to show that you are interested.

[RussianJoo]

like mentioned above, you want a phd not an md. most of the profs that teach basic science courses in med school are phd's. same with pharm companies.

[TrollFace]

How hard is it to become a basic science researcher with an MD from a reputable (i.e. California approved) Carribean school and no residency?

It can be difficult if you get a residency where the researchers aren't in high-impact journals, however, you can still do it. The main thing for basic science research is the NIH funding you get; academic and research institutions want people that bring them funding. The larger the funding, the bigger the cut that the institution gets. In the end, it's just a matter of taking the baby steps.

[DrPG]

If you look at bios of some faculty members, you'll see some have foreign medical degrees and went on to get masters. When I did my masters, some of the faculty members were Chinese trained MDs, who came and did some clinical masters prog.

[DermMDPhD]

doable,but very very hard. It depends on how many publications you have had and what kind of journal you are in. Theoretically it''s possible if you become a postdoc for a few years. Straight out of school, I think it's next to impossible. Even if you land a job, you will compete with other MDs with residency + research for funding.

[nrai2001]

Its possible to get a job working in a research lab... thats definitely true, I know med students from the Carrib working in labs... but like others have said to get your "own lab" at a PD level would probably be pretty difficult. Could probably work and get experience and move up eventually. I did a few years of research in the past and I ve seen labs run by people who didnt even finish college but they basically had been working there long enough (15+ years), became lab managers and eventually became PDs... this definitely isn't the norm though