Hello guys

I have a handful of questions on Saba I'd like to ask and hopefully get some nice answers to!

1. I read a post from the Saba graduate who went into Neurology. He said that when doing his clinicals or whatever in the states (he did his in Shreveport, LA), that Saba did not help him at all, and that he had to pay tuition for a handful of semesters when the school did nothing for him. I'm assuming that he was talking about his third and fourth years of school. My question is then how does the transfer from Saba to the US work? To me, it seems that you do your basic sciences at Saba, and then transfer to the US and do clinicals. If the school is not involved in the clinicals, how do you get grades for your last part of med school? Does the school help match you to hospitals for the last part of the schooling? I can't find pages on Saba's website to answer this.

2. Just how long are you on the island? And how long is there between semesters? And how many semesters do you spend there? For instance, at Ross its 15 months on the island with 2 weeks between each semester. They try to get you off the island as quickly as possible.

3. It seems like Saba is a great island to be on. I'm really turned on by the fact it's only about 1200 people on the island. But what is typical for housing there? I think I read that it is mandatory to live in the dorms for the first semester, but after that is there good apartments to rent? I'm guessing that no apartments would really be too far away, since the island is very tiny. Maybe if it were far a moped or something would be nice.

Also, since the island is so small, I'm assuming that a good portion of the population is the medical school's students. Are the islanders happy to have the med students there?

4. Eating. I went to a tourist site for Saba and it seems there are a lot of good restaurants on the island. Are they fairly priced, or are they inflated for tourism? It seems that since the island is so small, no restaurant would be too far away, etc.

5. I read a post asking about what kind of clothes to bring for the hospital. When do you go to the hospital, what class is that for?

6. How easy is it to find American items down there. For instance, for Ross they tell you to bring things like tampons (for girls), or special candy bars or what-not that you may have a passion for. Is this stuff very available on the island? Or would it be wise to ship it down?

7. Is there really only 10 miles of paved roads?

Thank you very much!!

Why not just call the school, or go to the school's website and download a catalog or have them mail you one. A little self guided research never hurt anybody.

-M

well almost everyone (except the few that choose to go to england/ireland) completes their rotations in the US. Apparently this student wanted to stay in the shreveport area. He set up his own rotations there through the hospital. He still has to pay the school because the school is giving credit for the rotations and the school sends paperwork, evals etc to the hospital. Plus the student has malpractice insurance. That is part of the tuition. Malpractice ins is required wihle you are completing rotations.. The school may not have set up the rotations for him (since he was particular about where he wanted to go) but there are other things that the school takes care of during that time, malpractice ins being one of them. Im sure the school had to provide the hospital with letters of goodstanding etc.. also.

Normally the school sets up your cores for you and schedules dates for specific rotations. For whatever reason if you want to do your rotations in a particular place that the school does not have an affiliation with and you know someone there or they permit you to do it, the school sets up a temp affiliat with that hospital for you so that you can rotate through there and receive credit, grades etc.... (if you do a search there should be a post about some states requiring you to rotate only through affiliated hospitals if you want to be licensed in that state.)

Same thing applies to electives. ppl set up their own electives at various different places. You still have to pay tuition.

hey studentMD!

Thank you for that information on the clinicals. That is very helpful!

As for the rest of the questions, I've searched their site and can not seem to find the answers to them!

ppl probably busy with exams since they were this past monday thats why no replies..

you have 5 semesters on the island...
so thats roughly a yr and 8 mths.. which is true of most schools in teh caribbean .. ross has their fifth semester in miami.. if you maintain a certain gpa or pass the cumulative at the end of 4rth.. if not u have ot stay for an extra semester on the island for a review course...

you can find the more curriculum info on the saba web site http://www.saba.edu/admissions_curriculum.php

also from teh saba site http://www.saba.edu/admissions_curriculum_**.php

I'll give it a crack.

1. Transfering to a U.S. school from any caribean school is hard. I talked to one guy who's brother did it. But don't count on doing it.

2. Normally 20 months. But you can work out deals with the school to have your load lightened each semester. But it means you will stay longer. The breaks are about 2 weeks each. 5 semesters.

3. There's always housing available. If you live outside the Bottom it's too far to walk. There are 2 taxi's and a couple of buses that run to school everyday. Some of the islanders like us. Others are quietly resentful.

4. Resteraunts are one thing that's actually on par with the states pricewise. Don't expect good service though.

5. That's after 1st semester. I guess we wear scrubs.

6. You can get most of that junk down here.

7. Yes

Hope that helps.