It’s the usual trope of questions this time of the year.
“Does the school offer research internships?”
“What are the extracurriculars of said school?”
“Does the school work with US hospitals?”
“Does it offer a USMLE-based curriculum?”
“Have people matched in the US from your school? If so, how many?”
3 years after my graduation, I still read these questions online by perspective students. Despite what is going on in the US politically and socially and the well-known inhumane work hours, applicants tend to prioritize a potential future position in the US rather than finding a medical school that will focus on making you a decent doctor.
In my experience, most of the students that had this priority during Med School, failed to even get through the first year. Their focus was at a different place. While the rest of us were cramming those books and fighting to survive school, they were spending all of their energy on how to tackle STEP 1, while failing basic sciences subjects. It is true that a few students made it to the US, but the ones that did were very realistic about it, extremely focused and studious and were targeting realistic options there. They were not expecting to find a derm or neurosurg position waiting for them there the moment they graduated. Instead, literally all of them spend at least two years in non-clinical research positions, before applying.
I’m currently working in an EU country, doing my specialty of choice at a university hospital. It is considered a competitive specialty, yet I didn’t have to do expensive internships and extensive research to find a job there. All I had to do was to learn the language, do a couple of internships for free, and I had 3 offers from 3 different hospitals to work. I started from smaller regional hospitals and now I’m working at a university hospital. All that with a good salary, 4-5 weeks of vacation time (depending on the year) with possibilities of doing research and a master or a PhD. Things are not perfect of course; the hours are long, as expected, you may get the occasional toxic colleague and depending on the day you’ll get some awful days/nights that will overwhelm you. But, at the end of the day, I’m happy here.
What I want to say is that Europe is not lagging behind the US anymore. We don’t live in the 90s anymore, there’s innovation and improvement within the healthcare system (in most EU countries, in some the situation is bad) and also you won’t bankrupt your patient if you perform a routine lap chole. Also, here you don’t have the constant fear of having a patient suing you for leaving them a reasonable scar after a life saving procedure and because of that we don’t have to pay thousands upon thousands of euros on malpractice insurance.
The majority of my EU classmates are content living and working in their countries or their countries of choice. Things are not perfect for anyone including me, but our overall experience thus far has been good.
My question is: Why do the non-EU students still fall for the American Dream? Why don’t they learn a new language and try their luck in the EU where the situation is much more humane? Is it due to the romantization of the US medical system from Hollywood? Is it the high salaries and the so-called “prestige” of a US residency? Or is it just because they don’t want to learn a new language?