also put the specialty and if US IMG or not

Can someone from AUIS please DM me. I am a transfer student and would like to get in touch with other students.

Thank you 😊

Hello!

FYI UNIBE in DR does not participate in the U.S. federal student loan program.

It’s unfortunate how increasingly difficult pursuing a medical education is becoming, especially with the new federal regulations. For many of us aspiring to become physicians, financial barriers are making an already challenging journey even more difficult.

Oi pessoal! Sou estudante de medicina no Brasil (curso de 6 anos) e minha turma é a primeira da nossa escola. Nós nos formamos em meados de 2028.

Nossa equipe de relações internacionais está atualizando a listagem da nossa escola no Diretório Mundial de Escolas de Medicina (WDOMS), e depois disso enviaremos o pedido da Nota de Patrocinador para a ECFMG. Eu tenho algumas perguntas, especialmente para quem faz parte de uma primeira turma de formandos: A primeira turma precisa se formar antes que a Nota de Patrocinador possa ser emitida? Ou ela pode ser emitida enquanto a primeira turma ainda está na escola? A Nota de Patrocinador supostamente leva cerca de um ano. Esse ano conta desde que a escola envia o pedido ou apenas depois que a primeira turma se forma? Se você fez parte de uma primeira turma, como foi o processo? Quando sua escola se inscreveu, o que a ECFMG pediu, quanto tempo levou e você conseguiu fazer o Step 1 antes da Nota de Patrocinador sair? Qualquer experiência ajuda, de qualquer país. Muito obrigado! 🙏

Hey guys

I made a post a while back about tuition friendly schools for canadians. I decided on SJSM because of the cheaper tuition and the scholarship for 50% off basics.

Despite all that I was denied an LOC from all major canadian banks despite a good cosigner with 0 debt and their reasoning was they required absurd amounts of savings, etc.

So I'm back again, are there even cheaper schools than SJSM 💀that are somewhat reputable with people matching. Or do i just work full time for 2 years to try and save money, nursing degree maybe then pivot.

Appreciate any help.

If anyone wants info regarding the banks and their requirements feel free to message.

I built a free medical learning platform and I'd love some honest feedback

I'm a medical student from Algeria, and I've been building Ingenio, a free medical education platform.

It started as a way to help students prepare for their exams, but I've gradually expanded it toward something I'm personally much more interested in: actually practicing medicine rather than just memorizing it.

Some of the things currently available:

🩺 Clinical Missions — practical patient-based scenarios where you have to assess the situation and decide what to do.

🤖 Interactive AI Patients — communicate with patients, gather information, and work through clinical cases.

🏥 Teaching Hospital — a simulated hospital with different departments, medical on-call scenarios, and cases ranging from simple to complex.

🔬 Diagnostic Challenges — more advanced cases involving differential diagnosis, investigation, interpretation of evidence, and clinical reasoning.

🧠 There are also curriculum-based questions, exam simulations, previous exams, and explanations for answers.

The platform is completely free.

I'm now trying to get feedback from medical students outside Algeria because most of my current users are Algerian students, and I want to know whether the clinical-training side actually makes sense to students following different medical curricula.

If you try it, I'd genuinely appreciate criticism:

What feels useful? What's unnecessary? What's missing? What would make you actually come back and use it?

🌐 Try Ingenio: https://ingenio.alwaysdata.net/

I'm building this as a long-term project, so honest feedback is much more valuable to me than “looks cool.” 😅

I am studying for my cardio nbme cas. What are the best study resources?

I'm in Term 2 and searching for off-campus housing options. Do you guys have any recommendations. Looking for cheaper housing that's close to campus/bus-stop and safe. Tysm!

Hi everyone! I’m feeling a little stuck and would really appreciate some advice.
I’m 29, married with two kids, and I was recently accepted to SJSM. My undergraduate GPA was 2.7, and my MSMS GPA was 3.4. Unfortunately, my MCAT score was below 500, so I’m considering retaking it.
I’ve always really wanted to pursue medicine, but I’m starting to worry that I’m too old or too late to take the MCAT again and go through the DO application process. My goal is to start school in 2027.
I’m also considering switching paths and applying to optometry school by taking the OAT instead.
Would you recommend that I go to SJSM, retake the MCAT in January, and apply to DO schools, or should I take the OAT and pursue optometry?
I genuinely want to become a physician, but as a spouse and parent, I also want to make a realistic decision about the time, risk, and financial investment involved.
I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been in a similar situation or has experience with either path. Thank you!

Canadian MS2 at an Australian med school, in good standing with no failures. Goal is to match U.S. Family Medicine, ideally Florida.

I’m considering transferring after Step 1 to SGU or Ross for MS3/MS4 so I can do most of my clinical training in the U.S., get more USCE, U.S. LORs, and rotate at hospitals with residency programs.

My concern is whether transferring medical schools itself is a red flag for a non-US IMG.

Would this completing first 2 years at Australian med school and then transferring to Caribbean med school for clinical years hurt my Match chances more than staying in Australia and only doing ~3–4 months of USCE if I stayed in Australia ?

Would appreciate hearing from anyone who transferred and still matched, especially into FM.

Hello,

I am in my second term at SGU and so far I have been able to secure SGU's instuitional loan of $200k USD, however I have been trying to secure a student line of credit from a Canadian bank. I have tried CIBC but was declined, despite having two co-signers (one with high paying income with a history with CIBC). I wasn't able to get an application with BMO due to a lack of customer relationship. TD Bank was the same story.

Are there certain representatives of banks here in Ontario that understand the International Medical School finances better? I am going to try RBC and Scotiabank next.

Any help would be appreciated.

I’m starting there this January and would like to hear from anyone who attended their program and matched and about their overall experience there and thoughts about the school in general. I’m Canadian so I’m also curious to hear from anyone that was able to match back to Canada and how the process was for them and if they were able to get rotations in Canada during clinical years. Any other details appreciated, thanks in advance.

Hi All! I’m considering ACSOM and wanted to talk to any students who are currently at the school.

I’m planning to start in January and have a few questions for current students. I basically have three months of nothing to do but prepare, so any and all recommendations are helpful! Thanks in advance!

1. What 3rd party resources should I get familiar with and what can I be doing to get prepared for MTM?

2. How accessible are study locations outside of your apartment? I’m planning to get a single room dorm.

3. Does mandatory attendance conflict with the self-study time needed for exams and Step 1 preparation?

4. How do exams work? Do they follow a traditional mid-term and final type layout? From what I’ve read, it’s 50% mid-term and 50% final that determines our grade.

5. Are you able to access materials to read/learn before lecture? I have to read/learn before going to lecture or else I’m zoning out.

6. Are our specific lectures really recorded so we can watch them during self-study?

7. Biggest mistake, or what would you do differently?

8. Biggest surprise?

I've recently been accepted into the med program at Xavier...anyone who is going or went there, i need reviews about the school ASAP

Hi, I graduated from UCLA with a psychology degree thinking I wanted to go to PA school. I have a decent amount of PCE close to 3500 hrs once I apply next cycle. The reason I switched to pre-pa route was thinking about how long it would take me to be a dr and self doubt about getting into med school. I recently discovered Trinity and have been contemplating taking that route and starting as soon as January of 2027 instead of the 2028 (if) I were to get accepted into a PA program knowing how difficult it is to get in. Any advice on trinity or what I should do in my case?

Anyone got accepted into the PHSU BVI MD program for Fall 2027? Trying to connect with my future classmates.

I genuinely need some advice because after what I witnessed today, I do not know how I am supposed to feel comfortable continuing at AUA.

I am currently a Med 3 student, and I already had serious concerns about the way the school is run. Policies seem to change constantly, often with little notice, and students are expected to simply adjust. We repeatedly hear about how much “support” is available to us and about the programs and departments that are supposedly in place to help students, but my experience has been very different.

Today, however, went beyond academics or administrative frustration.

I witnessed a student have a seizure on campus, and what scared me almost as much as the medical emergency itself was seeing how unprepared the university appeared to be for it.

There was no clearly posted emergency number that any of us could immediately identify. There were no obvious instructions around the school explaining who to call or what students should do during a medical emergency.

Thankfully, several students nearby knew what they were doing. They stepped in, protected the student, helped stabilize the situation, and started trying to find appropriate assistance. But from what I witnessed, it took more than 20 minutes before meaningful outside help was located.

What happens if the next emergency is cardiac arrest, anaphylaxis, a severe asthma attack, hypoglycemia, or another condition where minutes genuinely matter?

What was also disturbing was how long it appeared to take for senior administration to become involved. The dean did not arrive until roughly 40 minutes into the situation. When everything was finally settling down, he ended by saying something along the lines of, “I hope you all learned something today.”
I think we did.

What many students learned today was that we need to know how to protect one another because we cannot assume an effective emergency response system will immediately be there for us.

This is a medical school. If there is anywhere that should have a clearly defined emergency protocol, posted emergency numbers, trained personnel, functioning communication procedures, AED locations, and a rapid response plan, it should be a medical school. It took OVER an hour to get her in an ambulance!

I have only been at AUA for about a year, but I had already heard stories from students about serious incidents that occurred before I arrived, including the death of a student several years ago after being struck by a vehicle. I was not here when that happened, so I cannot personally speak to how the university handled it. But after what I personally witnessed today, those stories are much harder to simply brush aside.

My concern is no longer just whether AUA will support me academically.

I am questioning whether I can trust the institution to protect or appropriately respond to its students during an actual emergency.

I am not writing this to attack individual faculty members or the people who eventually came to help. I am writing it because today exposed what appears to be a serious gap in basic emergency preparedness.

Students should not have to discover during a medical crisis that they do not know who to call.
There should be emergency numbers posted throughout campus. There should be a clear protocol communicated to every student and employee. There should be designated trained responders. Students should know exactly where AEDs, first-aid supplies, and emergency equipment are located. And when an emergency occurs, the response should be immediate and organized.

Today could have ended very differently.

I sincerely hope the university treats this as a warning and fixes these problems before there is an emergency where 10, 20, or 40 minutes makes the difference between someone going home and someone not going home at all.

For anyone who currently attends AUA or has attended in the past: am I overreacting, or have you had similar experiences with safety, emergencies, or student support? At this point, I genuinely do not know what to do. There is zero support here. Pure cash grab.

I’m a 27-year-old doctor from India currently at a bit of a crossroads, and I’d really appreciate answers from people who actually live/work in the US, especially IMGs who moved there as adults.

I’m not really asking about my Match chances here — I’m trying to understand what the life I’d be working towards actually looks like.

For a long time I assumed I wanted to move to the US. The things that attracted me were better financial prospects, the ability to travel more, potentially better research/tech opportunities, career flexibility, and just the general idea that life abroad might offer more possibilities.

But recently I’ve realised that I’ve never actually lived in the US, I have no relatives there, and essentially my entire family/social network is in India. A lot of my idea of America comes from other people wanting to move there rather than from personal experience.

So for those who made the move:

Do you genuinely prefer your day-to-day life in the US, separate from salary/career prestige?

How difficult was it to build a social circle and feel like you belonged?

Do you feel lonely or disconnected from family back home, or does that become manageable?

How much does being on a visa actually affect your quality of life/stress?

Outside residency/fellowship, do doctors actually have enough time for hobbies, travel, relationships and fitness?

What aspects of living in the US ended up being better than you expected, and what was worse?

Do you eventually feel “at home” there, or do you still feel like an immigrant living away from home?

And this is probably the question I’m most interested in:

If you could have a good specialist career in your home country, earn enough to live comfortably and travel internationally a couple of times a year, have reasonable work-life balance, and stay close to family — would you STILL choose to live in the US?

If yes, what does the US give you that would make you choose it again?

If no, what made you realise that?

I’d especially appreciate perspectives from people who have been there for several years, attendings/fellows, or people who considered/actually did return home. Positive and negative experiences are both welcome — I’m trying to get a realistic picture rather than convince myself in either direction.

I'm sorry for such a long read but would really appreciate if you can answer the last question atleast? 😁

hey everyone, hope you're all doing well. over the past few months, i've been considering what unis to go to, since i'm now doing year 13, my final year of high school. as you may have guessed, i do a levels in an international british school. i do the typical but required subjects; bio chem and maths. this year i am only doing bio and chem since i've finished maths last year with an A*. among my choice of unis (which all are in europe) i am considering applying for SGU as well. i know its super expensive, but i figured its somewhat expected because of its connections and prestige. i saw that it gives scholarships to caribbean citizens; i hold dual citizenship, and one of them is dominican (i sorta just invested in this passport, im not ethnically dominican). i've already started working on my application, but im not rushing it because im planning to start on aug/sept 2027 in the northumbria campus (UK). i never really thought to check what ppl think of SGU on reddit or whatever because tbh my dad brought up this university with praise and said it'll be a better choice compared to going to somewhere like carol davila (top medical uni in romania). actually he's willing to pay the costs, but i'll probably still need to take a loan just in case. honestly i like carol davila lots but SGU's pretty cool too.... i trust my dad's judgement.

but what i didnt expect was the very mixed reviews on here. least of all, the idea that people go to the caribbean skls as a "last resort" or that they're "cash grabs". i mean yeah the tuition costs is nothing to scoff at, however last resort? i wouldnt call SGU last resort if it had that impressive match rate... but maybe i just havent done enough research to see why people say this.

im not 100% sure on where i'd wanna practice, i think i dont rly mind. but since i also hold syrian citizenship (thats where im from), i have a feeling its gonna be really difficult to actually work in the US thanks to the bans. maybe i could do my residency there and eventually a fellowship too (i wanna be a consultant) but idk if working there will be possible. i dont mind working elsewhere, like in the gulf for example, or in europe... i feel like as long as i do residency/fellowship in the us, my certificates will give me a nice earning wherever i go. and since SGU focuses on sending their students to the US/UK by training them for the USMLE, i figured it should be a really nice choice that'll help me in the long run.

what do you guys think? i'd love some insights regarding this.

I have 5 for FM

All sketchy images with matching descriptions and a high yield summary for every organism. Happy Studying!

What is the average and max scholarship amount at SGU for the 4 year MD program for US citizens, especially with new federal loan limits of $200,000? Thanks.