Calling up Residency Programs for IMG Criteria: What To Ask ?

This post is unique - in the sense that I did not type it, yet it was me who 'wrote' it ! Howzzat ? Well I spoke it and the built-in Speech Recognition tool that is included with Windows XP, did the typing :-) Yeah - I like my techie side ;-) Yet, it needs a good amount of training and patience - and I don't imagine switching to speaking for the rest of my blogging

Back to our topic - When July / August draws near each year, life suddenly gets busy for residency program coordinators - not only with the fresh batch of matched residents who begin their residencies on July 1st, but also answering queries from the new crop of would-be resident candidates. Boy, it must get real busy!

Though emailing is far more convenient with the capability of bulk-emailing and low-expense, the phone yields better outcomes. Starting early is good for two reasons - the call-volumes to the programs will be much higher towards the end of August and secondly, the coordinator will be mentally fatigued in the later part of August answering the same queries over and over again.

Of course, some programs may even have the criteria pre-taped into their voicemails...




"Hi - This is ________. How' you doing ? ......... I am an International Medical Graduate and I had a few questions about your residency program"..or something like that...hmm, anyways, here are the questions you should consider asking:

1. Does your program accept International medical graduates and are visas sponsored ?


2. What are your criteria for the IMGs ?

3. Have you had any IMGs in the past 5 years - typically how many do you have each year ?



4. What are the USMLE score cut-offs ? Now this question by itself is not enough, what's also important to know is what has been the average scores of IMGs in the previous year. For example, often the 'cut-off' maybe be 85 on the Step 1, but the minimum scores of IMGs matched the last year may actually be 96


5. Have any out-of-match positions been offered within the last two years ?

(Remember that it makes practical sense to schedule interviews EARLY with programs that give out prematches and later for those that don't !)


End it off with : "Thank you very much, you must be very busy and I appreciate your patience with me - have a great week / weekend" or something like that.