Are you currently in medical school or already graduated in medicine and just found out that it’s possible to do medical residency in the United States and want to understand how the process works? This post is for you.
The good news is that the process is relatively straightforward. Once you understand what needs to be done, the path becomes clear. If you are already a specialist or have completed residency in your home country, there are some important details to consider.
In the United States, it is not allowed to practice medicine independently right after medical school, as is possible in Brazil. This means that to practice as a physician in the U.S., you must complete a specialization—medical residency (and in most cases, that residency must be completed in the United States itself, but we won’t get ahead of ourselves yet). So let’s start with the most “common” path.
You are a medical school graduate (and the path described here applies to any medical degree worldwide—it is not specific to Brazilians. So if you graduated from institutions in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, for example, the process will be the same for you).
You will basically need to go through two processes:
- Validation of your medical diploma in the United States
- Application for a residency position in the United States
Yes, that’s “all.” Now let’s get into the details.
How to validate your medical diploma?
It doesn’t matter whether you studied at the best public university in your country or at a recently established private medical school. For the United States, the name or prestige of the institution that issued (or will issue) your diploma does not matter. What matters is whether your institution has a Sponsor Note. If your institution does not have it, you cannot go through the process. This is a mandatory requirement to get started. To understand what a Sponsor Note is and to find out whether your institution has one, check this post.
Once you have a Sponsor Note, you can register with the ECFMG (Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates) and begin the process. To validate your medical diploma, you will need to pass some exams called Steps, take an English exam, and obtain the ECFMG Certificate.
The Steps are exams that American medical students also take during medical school. All physicians worldwide who want to practice medicine in the U.S. must pass these exams. They are: Step 1 and Step 2 CK. There is also Step 3, but it is not required to obtain the ECFMG Certificate, so you don’t need to worry about it right now.
The Steps are long and challenging exams with a large amount of content. There are specific study materials for these exams, and they can be taken in several cities in Brazil. On our Blog, you’ll find specific posts about studying for the Steps.
The English exam required is the OET (Occupational English Test).
Once you have completed and passed these steps, you can request your ECFMG Certificate. With it in hand, you move on to the second stage: applying for a residency position in the United States.
How to apply for a residency position in the U.S.?
The residency application process in the U.S. is called the Match, and it is different from the selection process in Brazil. In short: your exams (the Steps) are already completed, and you build an application consisting of several documents, which you then submit to residency programs. The programs review applications and invite selected candidates for interviews. After the interviews, both the candidate and the program submit a ranked list of preferences (candidates x programs), and an algorithm matches these lists nationwide, across all applicants, resulting in a single outcome: a match between a candidate and a residency position. It is possible not to match, but that’s a topic for another post.
What does the application include?
- Step exam scores
- Curriculum vitae with your previous experiences
- Scientific publications and research experience
- Letters of recommendation
- Letter of Intent
- Other required academic documents
Programs usually require 3 to 4 letters of recommendation. How do you get these letters? The strongest letters come from physicians who are part of the U.S. healthcare system. This means the best way to obtain them is by doing medical rotations in the United States. These rotations can be short (up to 4 weeks) or longer, can be done during medical school (as electives or during vacations), or after graduation. The key point is that letters of recommendation are absolutely essential for applying to residency in the U.S., and you need to plan ahead to obtain them.
Other factors such as research, publications, and additional experiences are also very important and strengthen your CV, but they deserve a separate post. The goal of this article was to give you a general overview of the process, especially if you recently discovered that it’s possible to do medical residency in the U.S. after graduating from medical school in Brazil.
One important point to keep in mind: there is no age limit to start the process. You can begin during medical school or after graduation. The entire process usually takes between 1.5 to 2 years. We also have a post on the Blog discussing the expected costs.
If you have already completed residency, we have a post discussing alternative pathways in our Blog.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. We’re keeping an eye on them!
See you next time!
