Concern 4: I didn’t get into a U.S./Canadian Medical School

Common concerns our prospective students discuss with us This is the fourth in a series of blog posts in which we share some of the key concerns we discuss with our potential students. Q:  I didn’t get into a US/Canadian medical school. Will this affect my medical career? A: You are not alone. In 2010 only 8.9% of applicants to American medical schools were accepted. This severe competition for a medical education, poses a significant social problem for the US, as the country faces a serious shortfall in the number of family physicians needed for national healthcare. The U.S. healthcare reform plan intends to provide health insurance to 32 million Americans currently without cover. This will lead to a massive increase in demand for healthcare in a system already struggling to meet the demands placed on it. Primary-care physicians (family physicians, general practitioners and pediatricians) are likely to be in most demand, as under the new health care system they will centrally coordinate care for each patient. At the same time, the number of medical school graduates entering primary care practice has fallen substantially, possibly because specialty fields of medicine commanding higher salaries are more attractive to students graduating with large burdens of debt. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates; based on the current rate of medical graduates, that there may be a shortage of as many as 150,000 doctors in the US in the next 15 years. While new medical schools are opening in the US to meet this shortfall, these new schools face a significant obstacle in a cap on government funding for medical hospital residencies and may struggle to obtain their students placements for clinical rotations. As a leading Caribbean medical school, Saint James offers an excellent alternative to a US/Canadian medical school. One advantage of a medical education at Saint James is that after just four semesters studying at one of our Caribbean schools, you continue your education in hospitals in the US, spending the remainder of your program gaining the valuable clinical experience that residency programs seek. Not only has St James School of Medicine an established and growing program of medical residencies and strong relationships with a number of hospitals in the US, it also offers affordable fees, meaning our graduates are not as burdened with heavy debt and have the freedom to cast their net more widely in medical practice. *1 Source US News. In 2010, 521,876 applications were submitted to the 121 medical schools that reported entrance data to U.S. News. On average, just 8.9 percent of applicants were admitted.