IMG shares his ENT Match Success Story

Dr. Oswaldo A. Henriquez is one of the qualified and lucky IMGs who got into an ENT residency program in the 2007 match at the Emory University School of Medicine. Congratulations to him and here are the some of the neat pointers he pens down very wonderfully:

"In 2007, only 9 of the 270 positions (3%) offered on the match were filled by FMGs—and these numbers did not even differentiate between US FMGs (who are US citizens with foreign MD degrees, hence no visa issues) and non-US FMGs."

"A lot of people drop out of the race before it even begins (and I do not blame them)."

"Doing well in scores at your med school is the first step to becoming a competitive candidate. But if it is too late for this, no worries. One of the beauties of this process is that if you were not a rock star at your med school, you have a second chance: doing well on the USMLE steps scores."

"As a visiting med student on an away rotation you will have the complete experience, seeing patients at the clinics, scrubbing in the OR, and helping the residents, the whole deal. This in contrast with an observership, which is what you get to do once you are already an MD, where you cannot have any direct patient contact."

"Research, Research, Research....Research, Research"

"Consider investing one year after med school doing a research fellowship in an otolaryngology program at the US (this is what I did). I consider this a must"

" One way to find these research spots is by emailing programs and asking if they have any positions available. In my case I e-mailed about 60 people and ultimately received one reply back with an offer. So don’t be discouraged: be persistent"

You will find most of these principles already covered on this blog - but just in case "digitaldoc boredom" has set in and you need to hear it from someone else ;-), then with the brief trailer above, I leave you to read the rest yourself here