DID NOT MATCH ?

For many IMGs who come to the United States on a visitor's visa and unfortunately do not match - returning back to home countries does not do much to improve chances for the following years match. Indeed, after the March Match announcements, the IMG / FMG has about 5-6 months (until September ERAS application opening) to improve his resume (and hence matching chances) for the subsequent match. Here are some things to be done:

a. Finish Step 3 if not yet completed
b. Hunt for Observerships / Externships for that coveted USCE and US-LORS.
c. Get involved in clinical research
b. Enroll in Findaresident.com [75$] and keep looking for open positions, just in case.

But all these needs physical presence in the US. Visitor's visa will not allow that for a long time. Here are some options to stick around :

1. Enroll in a Graduate Degree Program (Masters, Masters-Certificate) that sponsors a student Visa : Often local community college programs in almost every state offer student visas to International students and charge much much less as compared to state and private universities. Though you may need to take the GRE and TOEFL exams...Some programs that may improve your profile could be Genetics, physiology, cardiac rehabilitation, Medical Informatics, MPH etc.

2. Find a clinical research job that sponsors a H1 visa - people frequently post such jobs on USMLE forums. Other places to look for jobs would be careerbuilder.com, monster.com, local online newspapers, craigslist.com, University hospital websites, etc.

3. Kaplan Medical sponsors the F1 visa for IMGs for various USMLE courses - check that out with Kaplan

4. Do not forget to Copy-paste your Personal Statements and the entire Common Application Format from your MyERAS - coz' after June, ERAS shuts down the websites and all the information


[more coming soon...]