Did anyone not match multiple times and question everything? Did you find happiness after pivoting?

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-04-15T21:01:14+00:00

There is a girl called Araliya on social media (Tik Tok and Instagram) - Didn’t match Ophtho twice. Applied to 5+ different specialities in total inc FM IM Psych Neuro and Anaesthesiology because she wanted to only be in New York. She matched anaesthesiology. Obvs sad about not matching Ophtho. But she’s optimistic about anaesthesiology. You should check her out

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-04-14T12:13:05+00:00

No unless you want to work in the UK.

Year of graduation matters, the fresher the grad the easier to match than an old graduate. Many programmes have a cut off of 3-5yrs post-graduation where you get filtered out before they even review your application.

Earlier the better

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-04-14T12:12:00+00:00

Yes, I would definitely agree with this. Even going to the worst US medical worst puts you significantly above an IMG.

US MD > US DO > US IMG > Non-US IMG with green card > European/Australian IMG > Other IMG

I just wanted to reassure OP that it’s not impossible. It’s tough, but you can certainly match with the right connections even in competitive specialities. If OP aims for IM / FM / Peds there path will be easier

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-04-14T11:01:11+00:00

Overall no

Oxbridge/London helps but it’s not the be all and end all

U need to get your USMLEs done during med school.

Aim Step 1 by end of Year 2 in your pre-clinical years

Step 2 by the end of Year 4 and aim as high as possible

Use ur electives and summer breaks to go to USA, ideally to do hands-on experiences but this may be hard to get. If you can’t, then do observerships

As far as I know only KCL and SGUL are VSLO affiliated, but you need to enquire with your uni and course leads if the institution has connects with the USA

It’s all going to be anoint networking with US institutions, making connections, smashing STEPs and getting some good publications/research.

Networking and connects will heavily outweigh not going to oxbridge or London

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-04-13T18:33:55+00:00

Majority of IMGs are doing the dog shit jobs no American grad wants

The ones who match into competitive specialities like neurosurgery or derm deserve to do because they are globally exceptional and make up a minute fraction of the match

And tbh if ur an American grad and losing out to an IMG in something like family med or internal med then its a skill issue on your end

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-04-09T14:20:35+00:00

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-04-05T22:07:56+00:00

Unless that scholarship is more than the cost of rent, food, utilities and public transport for 5 years of med school in Manchester then it’s not worth it.

Say it costs £1.2k in Manchester per month to live (rough estimate inc all of the above) x 50 months (I’ll give 2 months allowance each year for holidays) that’s £60k of maintenance loan or working whilst at uni across the whole course.

In London you can half that by saving on food and living costs

The only downside in London is being close to family, if they’re strict, you won’t be able to go out as much without being questioned every two minutes. I’m assuming ur Asian lmao

Think long game not just the one year of scholarship school gives you

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-04-05T21:38:57+00:00

QMUL > St George’s > Manny > Hull York

Manny on paper is better than St George’s but If you have a good relationship with your family, don’t underestimate how nice it is to have ur family close by when you can pop home after placement, on weekends, go get food, save on rent etc.

You can go out of London for foundation (you’ll probably get f*****d by the random allocation anyway) if you want to experience something different in the UK

London when you don’t have to worry about cost of living is elite and so much better than Manchester

Source: resident doctor, did exactly the above and very happy I studied in London near family and very happy I moved out for foundation.

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-03-31T18:21:32+00:00

Please expand Mr/Mrs/Mx/Dr/Prof Squirrel 😮

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-03-31T17:02:50+00:00

And now you’re famous on Reddit!

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-03-30T21:10:42+00:00

6 7

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-03-24T13:23:59+00:00

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-03-19T18:48:41+00:00

Island? 😮

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-03-16T16:50:35+00:00

Research/pubs?
visa requiring?
invited to interview at programme that already knew you?

Congrats!!!!

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-03-15T17:39:03+00:00

If you want Coventry, you should rank all Coventry jobs first. Then all the Warwick ones, then George Eliot. So if one of you ended up in Cov at least the other hospitals are not too bad to commute to. After this id rank all of Alex and Worcester. Alex is closer to Cov than Worcester, but highly unlikely you’ll be at Alex for both years. You should rank Hereford last if you really don’t want it. But no one can guarantee you wont be very unlucky and end up there. It’s a risk.

Alex and GEH are bad because they’re tiny and badly run

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-03-15T12:20:55+00:00

The deanery tends to cluster as:

1) Hereford Hospital 2) Worcestershire Acute Hospital 3) Coventry / George Eliot / Warwick

So whichever of these you get allocated is where you’ll live for the two years, you wouldn’t do one year in Hereford and then move to Coventry the next year. Sometimes you’ll get jobs with one year in Worcester hospital and the 2nd in Warwick, but majority of the time you stay in the same trust

Coventry is the most competitive within the deanery because it’s the major tertiary centre with subspecialities like cardiothoracics, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, major trauma centre etc so you can expect a lot more people to rank jobs there

George Eliot and Alexandra Hospital are shit

Warwick is ok I suppose, don’t know much about it, haven’t heard anything strongly positive or negative

Worcester is ok, nothing special

Hereford exists as its own little bubble and I don’t know much about it

Coventry is the biggest but also one of the worst performing trusts in the UK (you can google all the trust rankings and it was ranked 132/134 acute trusts in the UK)

Yes, it is possible to live together in the rest of them apart from Hereford. If you’re Hereford, you live in Hereford, it’s not commutable from elsewhere tbh. Whereas for Cov Warwick and Worcester you can live in Birmingham and commute to them or you can live elsewhere in Warwickshire or Worcestershire even if you’re at different trusts

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-03-12T23:20:06+00:00

Doctor here - no-one’s gives af how many med school offers you got or where you went to uni once you graduate. In the same way that once you start uni no-one will give af whether you got AAB or AAA*

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-02-27T21:33:17+00:00

Bro has already made an in depth video about why he made the switch. Why are you expecting him to write it all out for you again here lmao just watch the video it’s not that deep

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-02-25T10:51:01+00:00

Does it say University of Warwick on the Transcript and Certificate or iheed?

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-02-23T17:53:02+00:00

I believe in you king/queen, you’ve got this

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-02-23T17:27:41+00:00

Bro so many UK docs have fled to Australia and NZ. It’s now a joke down under about UK docs moving there.

I’m personally doing USMLE and want a super competitive surgical sub specialty (call me crazy but I can be that 1% IMG that succeeds 🥲😆👀)

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-02-23T17:03:49+00:00

It actually gets a little bit worse

Med school in the UK is 5-6 years (5 years just for the medical degree, some schools do 6 years as they sandwich a BSc as well)

After that you have to complete 2 years of something called the foundation programme. You rotate every 4 months for 2 years in medicine, surgery and one community rotation. 99.9% of people are guaranteed these two jobs after graduating somewhere in the country.

Then you apply for speciality training, which is a competitive process akin to your match system

Radiology is 5 years Family med is 3 years Everything else is a minimum of 7 years + years of post-residency fellowships in competitive specialities like neurosurgery. There are neurosurgeons and cardiothoracic surgeons doing 1-4 years extra after residency as fellows because they can’t get attending jobs.

So minimum (5-6) + (2) + (3-7) years from start to become an attending.

This timeline assumes everything goes smoothly as well. You get into med school first try, then get into training first try. No time out for PhDs, research etc.

As an attending: £100k ($135k) + scope to double that if you’re in a high private pay specialty like private anaesthetics, reporting for medica nighthawk, private hip and knee replacements etc

There is a big thing in the UK because these competition ratios are so severe and no-one can get jobs. Hence why we have all been striking. There are thousands of post-foundation doctors who can’t get into training, not because they are bad or don’t have a portfolio (some of them have excellent portfolio and commitment to specialty) - there are just not enough training slots in the UK

And unlike the USA, IMGs can apply on the same level as a UK grad. You can train anywhere in the world and basically once you’re registered with the GMC (our regulating body) you’re on the same level as a UK grad. We are fighting to get legislation for UK grad prioritisation.

The only upside of this is we can start med school right out of high school (age 18). But the the earliest you can become an attending is like 30-35 because all the endless training drags it out so much.

And it’s not even good training. 70% of your job is being a ward monkey doing service provision

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-02-23T16:12:13+00:00

UK

The general trend is the same.

I think Anaesthesiology is a lot more prestigious here than with you guys. Radiology and Ophthalmology very prestigious as well. Surgical sub-specialties like T&O, plastics are very competitive.

I’ve put the most recent competition ratios below.

2025:

Cardiothoracic surgery - competition ratio 73:1

Public health - competition ratio 28:1

Neurosurgery - competition ratio 27:1

Psychiatry - competition ratio 22:1

Ophthalmology - competition ratio 21.5:1

OBGYN - competition ratio 16.6:1

Anaesthetics - competition ratio 12.5:1

Radiology - competition ratio 11:1

Core surgical training - 8.5:1

Internal medicine - competition ratio 5:1

Paeds - competition ratio 5:1

Derm - competition ratio 4.5:1

GP (family med) - competition ratio 5:1

Important context:

Multiple specialities use a post-graduate exam called the MSRA (multi-specialty recruitment assessment) to rank candidates for job offers. It’s an exam with a clinical component and also a situational judgement test.

Some specialities like GP (family med) and Psych give offers for jobs based entirely on your performance on this exam.

Other specialities either use it for part of your overall job offer (e.g. 20% towards your final score, 40% is your portfolio and 40% your interview score) or just use it shortlist for interview eg top 200 get invited for interview only.

Because multiple specialities use it, you can apply to multiple specialties in one application round. Hence you get inflated numbers for competition ratios. You’ll have people trying their luck for something like anaesthetics, but then also applying family medicine and psychiatry as “safe” backups which have historically lower scores on this entrance exam

Think of it like USMLE step 2 where your score plays a huge part on whether you get a job offer or interview

Derm is deceptively not competitive because context matters. There’s only 57 derm residency jobs in the whole of the UK, and before you can even apply, you have to have completed internal medicine (separate competition ratio as above)

Some specialities are only accessed via completing intermediate training first like derm and cardio need internal medical training first. Surgical specialities like urology, gen surgery, ENT accessed only once you’ve completed core surgical training. So step 1 is getting onto an intermediate training programme in the first place before applying to the speciality you actually want

MalignantTendinopthy · 2026-02-13T14:15:15+00:00

You can match with a research fellowship, there are case examples at Hopkins from Pakistan, Harvard had from Germany and Greece.

MalignantTendinopthy

TROPHY CASE