Noooooo! We're going to miss you. Huge congrats on getting into Charles University, I'm so jealous. I've actually been thinking for some time now about finishing my PhD in artificial intelligence there. My wife is from Slovakia and if she can teach me Czech, the classes are free!

I know you're going to have tons of fun there, the city, forests, and mountains are beyond imagination. If you want to continue writing someday for D&D or WoD, Prague and the forests and mountains around the area has got to be the perfect inspiration. And you're right in the middle of Europe so you're never more than a quick train ride to all the coolest places in the world.

Charles reminds me of Hogswarts: Not only is Charles the oldest university in central Europe, but the downside is that some of the professors are very "old school" and love to treat the students like crap (at least that's what my wife tells me, she had some friends that went to Charles).

Are you going to take the classes in English or are you going to learn Czech? If I remember correctly, even without the Czech language discount, Charles is still surprisingly affordable for being one of the best (and oldest) schools in Europe.

Congratulations!

Now just because you are moving and not doing anymore SR projects for the time being... that in no way absolves you of the requirement to come here and darken our doorsteps.

Good Luck Frank!

Not Frank but ...

Well, people practice in the U.S. with medical degrees from places like Grenada and Guatemala, so I don't see why not. Of course, there might be some kind of additional step involved if he was to go back to the States, but I wouldn't think it'd be too much of a problem.

There are additional hoops you have to jump through for the AMA and they're not easy. My former boss, may she rot in hell, was a doctor in HK but over here just a lowly manager, a bad one may I add.

Bitter? Nah.

Basically they have to meet certain criteria and take the same liscensing tests Amercian students do, either the USMLE if they are applying to state-side residency programs or the specialty-specific board examinations (which are administered by the various professional associations- American Board of Internal Medicine, American Board of Neurology, etc).

Over the years, I've met many FMGs in US residency programs so it shouldn't be a problem. As long as you have a degree and have passed step 1 and step 2, I believe you can enter the match.

The bigger problem would be coming back after doing a residency. I've known some people who've had to repeat residencies in order to practice in the US. Then again, I've known people who didn't have to so maybe it has something to do with ACGME accrediation.

On the flipside, a friend of mine who moved to Canada had to do an extra year of residency in order to practice pediatrics in Canada (peds is 3 years in the US, 4 in Canada).

Honestly, compared to the MCAT, the Charles entrance exam is kind of a joke. Since you have to send them in your transcripts and your resume before they even let you take the test, I assume that the test is largely intended as a formality - although some people certainly did fail it.

Questions are similar to the MCAT, but instead of being 3 separate sections of about 100 minutes it's just one test that they give you 75 minutes to complete. I was done in 45. Sections are Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. No writing sample, but there's an interview section where they give you a stand-up prompt and ask you to improvise something. My prompt was "Terminal Illness: Continuation of Care?" but some other people got crappier prompts ("Child Abuse" or the perenial head scratcher "Sexual Preference and Sexual Deviance").

The big difficulty of the Charles exam relative to the MCAT is that you get no context for any of the questions. So when they ask you a question about Aniline, they just fucking expect you to know off the top of your head what that is and what the chemical formula is. For comparison, an MCAT question about Aniline would come in four parts and go into way more detail about its chemical properties, but it would also give you a chemical formula for Aniline when it introduced the section (meaning that a solid knowledge of organic chemical prinicpals could get you through even if you never called that particular chemical anything other than phenylamine or aminobenzene in your whole life.

They have a past exam set on the internet, use it if you intend to take the test in real life. Still, I think it's pretty telling that the two people who got the top scores had already gone through the MCAT process. Personally, I got a 36Q on the MCAT, which was enough to get in to medical schools, but since I could never get off the waiting list it hardly matters - I may as well have gotten a 20 for all the difference it made. The shortage of med school slots in the US is criminal.

---

As for transferring to the US: I don't know if I'll want to. But if I did, there's a certification board in every major industrialized nation that you have to go through to practice medicine. In the United States it's pretty strict (not the strictest if I recal, but up there), but I don't doubt that I can get through. What it comes down to is that a medical degree does not allow you to practice medicine, the medical certification body of your host nation does. Getting a medical degree is a requirment to be considered by those organizations, but in no way ensures that you will actually be allowed to practice.

Again though, I've never failed a test involving "science" in my whole life, so I have little doubt in my ability to come back to the states. Really depends upon how "on fire" the United States is by the time I get out. It will be 2012 after all...

-Frank

Damn dude! I got a 34R and had multiple offers. Maybe the schools you are applying to are more competative, but you could probably do well at most state schools (assuming your GPA is okay... mine was pretty average for a medical school applicant... too much SR during my undergrad years, i'm sure).

Was their exam in Czech (i assume)?

I agree but thats changing. The Feds recently asked the AAMC to increase class sizes for the first time since WWII. Somebody finially looked at the baby boom data and realized how fucked we are if we don't train more doctors fast.

The short answer is cost.

I've heard various estimates, but in the United States it costs about a million dollars to train a doctor. Since NOONE is paying $250,000 a year in tuition, pretty much every medical school (state and private) is subsidized by the Federal Government, private grants and donations.

Not sure how that works in other countries.

Incidently, thats also why it's so damn hard to get in. The minute you accept a position in an entering class the school has far more money invested in you than you will pay back in tuition. They cannot afford to accept people who can't hack it or lack the determination to stick it out when it starts to suck (which it will...).

This is in contrast to a lot of other professional schools that over admit knowing that some people will drop. The nice thing about medical school is that the weed-out process is all before entrance. Once you're in, they will do everything to make sure you finish (mostly because they have to).

Congrats.

Well, if you don't awaken in 2012, make sure you get started on bioware, I need new eyes.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!