Hiii, I am a medical student from Spain, looking for partner for OET speaking. Preferably someone in the same time zone.
Much better if it is someone who is willing to give feedback (of course I will give feedback in exchange if requested).
DM me!!
Hi, I am a 22 years old Non-US IMG from Europe, currently a MS5 (here medschool is 6 years long but access typically after highschool). Excuse me for my English, but I want to practice this language as much as possible, and I won’t enhance this text with AI.
I am going to start with a question: here is my score report, but in performance section it shows Same in every section (it is like that for the whole report) which I find a bit weird, should I do something about it? or is just shows up like this if you passed?
First of all, I want to start by saying that 20 days dedicated period is a bit of a lie, if you were waiting for the magic trick, I am honestly very sorry. I am considered among my peers what people like to call “a gunner” in the US.
For context, I am also a first-generation doctor, not only that, but I am also the first person in my family to go to university-my father is a car mechanic, and my mother works as a cleaner in school. For me this was an immense responsibility, was the biggest opportunity in my entire life, I didn’t want to let go of such a big chance I was given. So for the very beginning, I took the degree very seriously, I studied every day with anki (average 400 cards a day) and I studied my lectures hard (8:00-20:00 including classes and obvious life activities in the between) about 300 days a year. Here is a post on how I use anki: https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/1rfis6v/1000_days_streak_here_is_my_experience/
Even with the psycho routine, I maintained the balance as good as humanly possible, and that’s one of the keys. I had to leave my hometown for medical school, so almost all my new friends are in medicine, we eat together every day, we study together afterwards, we go to the bar after studying, so a big part of this score I owe it to them. I am from Spain, so leisure and parties aren’t optional, but if outside the 8:00-20:00 the better for my goals.
Sport shouldn’t be optional either. I go to the gym 4-5 times a week, play basketball or run about 5-6 times a month, I go walking everywhere (about 4km a day). I also had to work part-time during part of the journey to help my parents pay tuition and rent.
Anki (regular anking v12, I paid the subscription) + Cornell method for lectures got me top5 out of 400 students, and laid the foundation of the step exams.
I took and passed Step 1 in 2024 with a 3 months dedicated period (in hindsight I reckon was too much time, but I was scared) and my NBMEs where elite: NBME 28 (91%), NBME 29 (87,5%), NBME 30 (92,5%), NBME 31 (95%).
I am going to detail how I studied for Step 2ck, but honestly what I have just detailed was the most important part of my prep, take your medical school seriously and you will have double success.
Before dedicated I did some CMS forms and the full Anking deck.
For dedicated I did UWORLD alternating them with NBMES. My dedicated was supposed to be 3 months, however I scored very high in NBME 10 and had to options: take the original date 3 months later or the only other date available (13 days after I took NBME 10). I decided to go the madman route and summarize 3 months of studying into 10 days as I believed my score wasn’t going to go up by much and the prize of studying for 3 months dedicated is insanely high.
At the peak of the 10 days absolute craze, I was doing + revising 250 questions a day (either an NBME or UWORLD+CMS) + anki card I made from my incorrects + anking due cards. As you can see the studying strategy is simple, because that is probably the way to go. Here are my detailed scores in sequential order:
Uworld: 83% (about a 90% percentile); 30% finished
Did the last 3-5 CMS forms of each block: lowest EM (average 80%); highest neuro (average 95%). I want to pursue neurology since before medschool, and I’m a bit of a maniac if you haven’t realized already; also people tend to score high in neuro.
NBME 9: 245 (19 days out). Baseline NBME, 7% of UWORLD done, I made a lot of dumb mistakes, but also one of the most difficult NBMEs, that is why is the score is so different.
NBME10: 269 (13 days out). I took this test 2.5 months before my original date, but after this score 2.5 months felt like an eternity, I took an -at that moment- extremely hard decision.
NBME15: 261 (11 days out)
New Free 120: 84% (10 days out)
UWSA 1: 266 (9 days out)
NBME14: 264 (8 days out)
NMBE13: 261 (6 days out)
NBME12: 260 (5 days out)
NBME 11: 276 (4 days out). Getting a 276 after 3 consecutive days doing NBMEs was crazy. I left NBME 16 for 3 days out, after this score however, I felt like when you eat something very tasty and don’t want to eat dessert because it will ruin the aftertaste. I decided not to eat dessert.
Predicted Score as per Amboss: 266
Actual STEP 2 score: 276
If you have questions, reflections… drop a comment I am happy to help. If you want some kind of mentorship I can arrange something cheap, but honestly you don’t need mentorship, just follow basic resources and study for as long and as hard as you can. I won’t share any exam information as it is a violation of the rules.
If you have read the whole write-up and especially the beginning, you will see I come from humble upbringing. Please if you are in this situation note that one day -I promise it will come sooner than later- if you work hard enough, you will eventually be at the same level of your privileged peers, but they will lack the skin thickness that turns tough times into a light challenge. Thank you!!
**SEE GRAPHS**
For this year, Neurology is a very clear standout as a relative increase in competiveness in 2026 vs 2025; with improved overall fill, a higher U.S. MD senior share, and less reliance on IMG fills. Internal medicine, child neurology, neurosurgery, med-peds, pathology, and radiation oncology also showed modest strengthening or stability. In contrast, psychiatry, emergency medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, diagnostic, and interventional radiology softened, with lower fill rates, lower U.S. MD senior representation, or deeper movement down program rank lists.
The most consistently competitive fields remained dermatology (especially so this year, but no major change in graduate representation), plastic surgery, orthopaedic surgery, otolaryngology, neurosurgery, thoracic surgery, and vascular surgery... no suprises there.
These trends are not unique to this year but are relatively how things have been shifting over the last 3ish years now. Always impossible to know if these trajectories will continue.
Speculating, but Neurology may be becoming more competitive because 1) its "AI-resistantance" (buzz word these days) 2) improving lifestyle flexibility, with great subspeciality choice and especially pay 3) better patient outcomes with the most national reserach funding. IR and brain specialites are the forefront of medicine right now and thats kinda a no brainer. However, also to no ones suprise, radiology in general may be seeing decreased interest due to fear of AI encroachment in the coming decades. Just my thoughts. Please discuss.
The 2026 Match cycle data was just released and here's what it shows for PGY-1 positions based on specialty and the Non-US IMG trend with respect to the last 4 years:
Internal Medicine – Categorical (11,194 positions offered; 95.2% overall fill rate)
US MD 35.7% US DO 17.1% US IMG 9.5% Non-US IMG 30.8%
Family Medicine (5,491 positions; 83.6% fill rate)
US MD 27.2% US DO 25.6% US IMG 10.7% Non-US IMG 17.5%
Pediatrics – Categorical (3,126 positions; 94.4% fill rate)
US MD 45.0% US DO 19.7% US IMG 6.8% Non-US IMG 21.9%
Psychiatry (2,516 positions; 97.4% fill rate)
US MD 56.2% US DO 22.5% US IMG 7.0% Non-US IMG 8.8%
Surgery – Categorical (1,807 positions; 99.8% fill rate)
US MD 61.5% US DO 16.5% US IMG 4.7% Non-US IMG 7.1%
Surgery – Preliminary (1,207 positions; 55.0% fill rate)
US MD 23.9% US DO 5.3% US IMG 6.0% Non-US IMG 18.1%
Neurology – Categorical (1,003 positions offered; 99.6% fill rate)
US MD 58.1% US DO 18.0% US IMG 4.9% Non-US IMG 17.4%
Emergency Medicine – Categorical (3,198 positions offered; 95.6% fill rate)
US MD 44.3% US DO 35.0% US IMG 10.0% Non-US IMG 2.9%
Diagnostic Radiology - Categorical (156 positions; 94.9% fill rate)
US MD 53.2% US DO 21.2% US IMG 5.1% Non-US IMG 12.2%
Pathology - Categorical (636 positions; 99.7% fill rate)
US MD 41.5% US DO 18.2% US IMG 7.9% Non-US IMG 26.7%
Year wise for Non-US IMG: | 2026 | 26.7% | | 2025 | 27.0% | | 2024 | 27.2% | | 2023 | 30.2% | | 2022 | 33.6% |
https://www.nrmp.org/match-data/2026/05/results-and-data-2026-main-residency-match/
As if visas werent tough enough as it is in the US they have now said you cant adjust status to permanent resident in the US so if you enter the country on whatever temporary status like work etc you have to return to your home country for the green card. How is this going to work for doctors in their job? Seems unfair to me
If this is true, it’s huge , all 485 AOS ? Link here : https://x.com/dhsgov/status/2057817233200418837?s=46&t=qzX9c9ndlSROiUX9PAcXsg
USCIS memo : https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/PM-602-0199-AdjustmentOfStatusAndDiscretion-20260521.pdf
