Let's take one step back. There are two different ideas that need to be clarified.

1. No school is better, is the student that makes the best medical school.
2. Different school offers different "amenities"

Ideally anyone should choose a medical school to become a physician, not a test taker or a "First-aid addict". One enters a medical school to be able to learn the beautiful language of medicine and have the privilege and responsibility to treat sick human beings. We need a school that will show us the dignity, ethics and responsibilities of the profession, rather that just test taking skills.

Some schools have different ideas to train physicians, and its here were one have to decide what they want. No one can claim is better school than the other, because it is the student who makes its own "perfect" university.

The Caribbean school offers a unique opportunity to have the precious USCE, with this you have a much better opportunity to be known within the US and able to have good recommendation letters and get a good residency spot. But this comes with a great price. Graduates from this universities have no identity, they have been trained in so many different schools that no school can keep tract how its students is acquiring the ethical, dignities and responsibilities of the profession, they belong everywhere but nowhere a the same time. If your only objective is to come back to the US to be in a "nice" place, "nice" program, "nice" residency, the Caribbean school is your choice. I have to admit that the UAG will never have similar matching rates to these schools, since they can not be compared because their different approach to medicine.

The UAG offer something else, a place that has a tradition, an identity for its graduates. They will try to transmit the responsibility and ethics of the profession, the will train you to be a physician, who think for its patients, is very professional and can work independently. Will give you the privilege to treat patient very early in the career and you will be able to help very poor people to feel better. You will have SO MUCH hands-on experience that you will never be afraid to do procedures, H&P or be left alone in any place in the world. But this comes with a price, you will have very different cultural environment, things are always complicated and can not be solve the easy way, your Hand-on experience is Zero in the US and you will have below average knowledge on test taking skills. This school is ideal for those that still believe in the tradition to be a doctor and what to be train a real physician not a USMLE physician, and are willing to work hard to have a good education.

Two different systems that can NEVER be compared, not in the USMLE testing, not in the MATCH, not even in the medical profession.

Is an individual decision of what they want of medicine and what type of physician they what to be.

Lalo
Lalo

very well said my friend. There is absolutely nothing to dispute here, 100% true.

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From one of the speakers during Orientation, "There is nothing wrong with Mexico; it is JUST different"

This is what I would like to do to the "burros" of Megacable....

Very thoughtful response.

I agree that some schools offer a very different kind of experience and that can be appealing. You have articulated that well. I agree that the carib might offer some advantages for people who want a nice residency and a nice career. I also agree that UAG can offer a very different and perhaps better experience for a select group.

I don't accept the implication that people who are ambitious and score well on exams are somehow endowed with less empathy and have inferior people skills. This silly idea is often stated on valueMD like it is a fact.

The fact is there is no reason for going to a carribean school.
You do not get better training than an American school.
You do are not treated exactly like american students.
You are not experiencing a culture that is in need in the US.

THE ONLY PLUS IS THAT YOU CAN GET IN WITH LOWER SCORES.

As for UAG there is a great reason for going to this school.
You learn to serve an underserved portion of patients in America.
You learn a foriegn language that will help you throughout your career to distinguish you above your colleagues.
You get the full emersion into a separate medical culture and learn how it works from the inside.

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I had the opportunities of attending both uag then transferring to a carribean when the first influx happened back in '04 and '05. Lalo has very strong points but in the end.....its the residency we all strive for. That's the whole point of leaving our country to attend an foreign school as US citizens. To get a good residency spot...well, that was my reason.
The only reason i transferred to a carribean is because i graduated a year earlier and i got exposed to clinicals in the US the last two years. that simple. I love guad and the carrib school, but once residency started, no one cared either way.
The learning really takes in residency

Great insight from someone already going through Residency. People should know that it isn't life or death no matter which school they chose or will choose. Each step that follows tends to care less and less about the step before it when it comes to the aesthetic details. Once again, it's the tools you aquired at the previous step that can assist you where you are NOW that you really care about.

Well said. In my humble opinion those last two posts are right on the money.

doctorr, I think benton's post deserves just as much mention along with MedChe's and Karplus'

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Now that the UAG vs Carrib debate is settled who wants to talk about DO schools vs Carrib?? It's worthy of a discussion, is it not?

DO schools would knockout the carribean schools in a second.

There are very few states where the DO is even considered different than an MD.

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