Sweden and residency

Does anyone have personal knowledge that can help me with my conundrum? In the Barron’s Guide to Medical and Dental Schools, the author states categorically that no one should go abroad to medical school if an American medical school would accept him. I am relatively confident that an American medical school would accept me – maybe not Harvard! – my scores and grades have always been really high. He seemed to be gearing his discussion toward students who couldn’t make it into a US school since all of the foreign medical schools that he lists and discusses are in Grenada, Philippines, Dominican Republic, etc. – not that I am insulting these countries at all, but places that do not have the kind of resources on offer in the US or Western Europe.


This has given me a crisis of confidence about my plan to attend Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm-- that I will come out and not be considered for residencies back home. One thing I CANNOT do is take five years out of my life and then return home to no job. Does anyone (esp. those of you with ad com experience!) have an opinion or insight on this?





PS To answer an earlier question, I found out that Matt Corey was the name of a long-lashed loverboy on the soaps when I was a kid delivering newspapers. All the housewives would come out in their curlers and coo about “Matt Corey” from Another World. I haven’t dined out on that one for a while!!

Matt,
I’m just curious; did you try emailing the Institute to inquire about this? I poked around their website and noticed that they have exchange student relationships with a bunch of American universities. You might ask them for some statistics on residency placement of American graduates, if they keep such information on hand.
I was also curious–are all the medical courses in English, or just a select few? Sounds like an interesting place (like most of Europe) to spend a few years. hope it works out for you.

Matt, have you been to SDN? (studentdoctor.net) I think there’s someone from Karolinska there.
Now, the short answer to your question is that if you want to practice in the United States, it should pretty much ALWAYS be your first choice to attend medical school in the U.S. FMGs, even if they’re U.S. citizens, have additional hurdles to clear before they can practice. Most of them do fine, but it does limit some choices. There are residency programs that won’t look at foreign grads, for example.
As a student at a U.S. medical school, you can definitely pursue some overseas experiences – I don’t know if such a “taste” of Sweden would suit you, but I’ll throw that out FWIW.

We have emailed back and forth a couple of times in which they are really encouraging about the prospects for American grads, but I have not seen any statistics.
The lectures are overwhelmingly in Swedish, except for the ones by foreigners, who speak in English. The written materials are all in English. It’s ironic that not only do I, as a foreign student, have to pass a Swedish proficiency exam, but they (the Swedish students) have to pass an English proficiency exam as well.
Thank goodness the decision of where to apply is a year away. I am going on a campus visit this summer, and will definitely report my findings to the online community. Thanks!

Hey Matt,
I don’t know anything about the Karolinska MD program, but I know a guy who was going there for a PhD because they have links back to the NIH. He was pretty excited about it.
I think you’d have some of the same disadvantages as other foreign medical graduates (limits on your admission to residency programs, mainly); and perhaps another, that it is probably not particularly directed at the USMLE as some of the other offshore programs that cater especially to US grads are. But, there would be two advantages. First that it would be pretty dope to live in Sweden. Second that you could live and work in Europe if it came to that.
I think it’s a cool plan; but I also think that you should see where you get in in the US; you might surprise yourself.
cheers
joe

I don´t have the information you are asking for about going back for residency after doing your MD at Karolinska, but I have had the same question (I already live in Europe and have some Swedish ancestry). Last year, I looked on their website but did´t find any information on transferability. But Karolinska is a very prestigious research university & is generally well regarded I think - I had a post-doc option to go there to study neurodegenerative diseases (my grad disertation was in nerve growth and regeneration). (but I came to continental Europe instead for various reasons) I´d be interested to hear what you find out.