Best-Medical-Schools - GigaBrain (2024)

Everyone who graduates from any of these schools

I don't want to discourage you, but ENEM/Vestibular are hard exams even for native speakers, and med is the hardest course to enter. Some people spend several years until they manage to enter med school. Thus, keep that in mind when doing your planning. If possible, you should take a gap year just to focus on passing the admission exam.

For the vestibular, keep in mind that unis ask questions about regional geography, history, and cultural aspects. For instance, UFRGS will ask questions about Rio Grande do Sul literary works, UFSC about Santa Catarina geography, and so on.

I strongly advise you to give up. I would NOT recommend doing this. But if you still want to, here's the basic info.

Since you didn't mention anything, I will assume you are NOT a Brazilian citizen. Things slightly change if you are.

1. The legal barrier. Technically, if you are admitted to any university course in Brazil, the government will grant you a visa. However, to take the university entrance test (ENEM), you need at the very least Brazilian ID, called R.G.. To get a Brazilian ID, you need to already have a visa or be a citizen. See the catch? You need the student visa to take the exam, but you need to take the exam to get the student visa.There might be, of course, some workarounds, but assume it will be the most bureaucratic thing you have ever done in your life. I have never heard of any foreigners who took the ENEM and were admitted to a public university unless they had already somehow legally immigrated before taking the exam. Even if you find a way to legally immigrate, expect the bureaucracy to get all your documents to last over a year, so the earliest realistic admission for you would be 2026.

2. You need an extremely high score in the ENEM to be admitted to medicine. You need to speak formal Portuguese better than 99% of Brazilians, as om average only the top 1% test takers get in medical school. The average medical school student goes to fancy private high-school and spends years just studying for this test. What's more: you also need to master the entire Brazilian high school curriculum, which is very different from the US one.

Unless you are a genius, studying from March to November is very unrealistic even if you already were fluent in Portuguese. Since you're not, I sincerely believe this goal is not possible.

3. The ENEM only takes place once a year, usually in October or November. If you fail, you need to wait a whole year to retake it.

4. If you somehow pass the ENEM, then yes, all of these schools are very highly rated and completely free. The medicine course usually takes around 6 years and then you usually need to do a poorly-paid two year residence before you can start practicing.

5. Once you finally graduate, you will realize your salary, although very high for Brazilian standards, just pales in comparison to what you could earn in the US. Expect to earn around 30000 USD/year after finishing your residence, which is less than minimum wage in many US states. Then if after all this struggle you decide to go back to the US, your degree won't be recognized and you will need to go through an expensive and painful certification scheme to work in the US.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask. I'm also an American who went to Brazil to study (I am a Brazilian citizen too, tho) and honestly would not recommend it unless you are already certain you want to spend the rest of your life in Brazil.

People already gave you a lot of info but, just to add, of all possible ungraduations in Brazil, getting into medicine in a public college (like the ones you listed) is often the most DIFFICULT path to get into university even for brazilians. most study years and years just for that. medicine is the hardest course to get in and the public universities are also harder to get in since they are free.

and to add, the high school curriculum (asked in ENEM) has

• math
• physics
• chemistry
• biology
• portuguese grammar
• brazilian literature (and portuguese for colonial era)
• portuguese text interpretation
• art (global and brazilian)
• history (global and brazilian)
• geography (global and brazilian)
• philosophy
• sociology

and... like it wasn't enough, the test also has a very hard essay that requires a very good portuguese, a specific structure and enough knowledge of the current world problems (like sexism, hunger, porvety, inequality, feminicide, hom*ophobia, racism and so on).

Time out. Time out. I think you guys are missing the mark with the advice here.

​

Medical schools do not train you to be Emergency Medicine physicians.

Medical schools train you to be physicians.

​

Residency is where you are trained to be an Emergency Medicine physician.

​

Get accepted to a medical school, choose the best one if you are blessed to have that choice, and call it a day. Your success in medical school will determine the residency you will attend, and that is all that matters. EM program directors aren't looking for specific schools to bring them great EM candidates. It's all about STEP scores and SLOEs, which don't matter until you're actually a medical student anyways.

​

Tl;dr

​

Any U.S. medical school will set you up for EM

Well she wasn ’t a “demigod” to begin with. She was just a unsure girl that partied too much, that also wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps. With luck, favorability AND a lot of nepotism, she matched to Seattle Grace

Also according to Izzie (and the greys universe) Dartmouth was a much more prestigious med school than hers.

Italy is almost certainly your best option. The quality of teaching varies somewhat from school to school, but in general medicine is a self-study enterprise and that is definitely true in Italy. At least at the university of Padova, the academic standards are high and the exams are difficult, so if you study enough to get through them, you will certainly have a good foundation in that subject. You also have multiple attempts each year for each exam, so it's not like you're likely to fail out.

The model of medical education here seems to be an intense focus on theoretical knowledge followed by practical training in residency. The downside of this is that you will have to put a lot of effort and time into building your own clinical skills during school by asking hospitals and doctors to allow you to intern with them in your spare time. But the upside is, well, a lot of theoretical knowledge. And tuition is practically nothing compared to most eastern European schools, and possibly literally nothing if you can show that your household income is low enough.

The biggest drawback to living in Italy is that the bureaucracy will leave you emotionally crippled. But financially you'll be fine.

I passed step 1 last year and it all just comes down to the curriculum of one's school. US medschool curriculums are somewhat tailored to cover step 1 materials, so US students will have learned all the necessary topics shortly before taking the test.

The difficult part for non-US students is that step 1 contains topics that many EU schools cover in the clinical years. So if you take step 1 after clinicals, you will probably have to relearn a lot of the preclinical stuff and if you take it directly after preclinicals, there's a good chance that you haven't yet learned a lot of topics as EU curriculums teach them later.I bet even most US M4s wouldn't be able to pass step 1 again without intense preparation.

Generally the difficulty level is absolutely manageable, anatomy, physiology and pharmacology related questions were even way below the level of the corresponding exams at my school. I was lucky that my schools curriculum covered most of step 1 material in preclinicals and only had to really study for some topics that I hadn't yet learned.

So yeah, USML exams definitely aren't the be all and end all of medical education. If you put in the effort and do more than just the bare passing minimum you absolutely can get a great education regardless

I've heard some not so good words about Bulgaria about how final year students can't pass the USMLE because of the incompetent education

lol, I go to a top UK med school and very few of us could pass the USMLE. Not suprised Bulgarians can't either – it's not about the quality of education, it's about the focus! Anyone can pass with enough discipline and self-study.

Coming from a prospect Pakistani med student living abroad (literally in the same situation as u rn) :Pakistan: Quality of non- clinical training might be good enough in paki , especially if you’re looking at Agha Khan or King Edward. However, practically I’d say its a hit or miss, i don’t expect over the top clinical training there considering the overwhelming environment there. I would say studying in Pakistan is cheaper ..to some extent, if you’re looking at the likes of Agha khan though then you’re better off in Europe. As far as residency goes, im planning for the USMLE in the future and I’ve looked into paki med schools that offer such opportunities and im afraid it’s not as good as you’d find in Italy or Cyprus for example. The language barrier is definitely something you must consider keeping in mind that the general or majority of the population here in Europe are not expected to be fluent in English and some Med programs are also a sandwich between local language and English. Definitely go for Pakistan if you think learning a new language is gonna be burdensome.

Europe: Considerable good clinical training, a comparatively better environment and better opportunities for pursuing residencies in the US or Canada. The language barrier might be an issue as you’ll have to learn the language in clinical training if not before.

My opinion: I would say opt for Europe, clinical training and job prospects matter more , at the end of the day if you’re not planning to work in Pakistan later on then moving abroad earlier would be much better. I , myself am thinking of studying in Cyprus, good environment and average fees.

Hope that helped, pm me if you need any help or suggestions! :)

Hey this might be a lazy answer but have you considered Poland? I'm a Paki going there this year!

They're pretty affordable and from my research, they are some universities (can't remember the name off the top of my head) that specifically offer help with the USMLE with resources.

Canada, as sad as it is, it doesn't matter where you study because it's just impossible 😀 I was a bright eyed soul about it too till you get to the part where is says you've got to be a PR atleast, you've got a higher chance of potentially working there after completing residency and having some years of experience on you.

The hierarchy goes, UK always comes at top in English speaking countries to score a residency in for IMGs, and Canada is at the bottom as IMG friendly, if it even makes it to the list. You've got a slightly higher chance in the US 🥺

In terms of deciding which is better, listen I think it really boils down to life goals, finances and preference of residency/ specialization. If you're deadsure you're going to go to an English speaking country for residency, and you can afford it, then Europe would be the better option. However, if it's important to you to specialize in the same country as your graduation, then sure why not your home country?

Thanks limeguydr!

side note, i see iowa in the t30 for the past few years of pd rankings, do people consider it a t30 type school?

not really here is why i will try to make it as simple as possible

In India, students gotta choose between science, commerce, or humanities straight after 10th grade. And if you're eyeing medical school, it's a big deal. You not only need to rock the science subjects but also hit certain grade cutoffs just to have a shot. So, it's not just about acing science; you gotta meet some tough academic standards, making the whole journey to med school in India a real challenge.

The U.S. system isn’t representative of difficulty because med school is a graduate level program and most prospective applicants are weeded out well before they even graduate with their bachelors. Additionally, the application process is expensive and time consuming, thus the vast majority of applicants are highly qualified with a very high likelihood of passing the USMLE if they were accepted.

So it’s really pointless to compare acceptance rates since the variables are vastly different.

i would say india

1 overpopulation

2 very high stats and even harder because you get to medschool right after high school

3 you have to know you want to be a doctor from 10 grade in high school so you choose the science major work and also they have something called cutoff in which you need to have certain grade to be even considered for science field

The US has that too. The MCAT. Which is a postgraduate-level exam that tests content knowledge in General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, General Biology, Biochemistry, Physics, Psychology, and Sociology along with critical analysis and reasoning skills.

There are also competitive tests to get into college, way before any med school dreams become relevant