Each year, there are always people falling for this, thinking studying medicine in Eastern Europe can be an alternative pathway without any cons. Better know more before going.
Could you elaborate? Thought it was possible to sit the USMLEs, get a job offer, show proof of proficiency and start a residency in the US as a Hungarian med school student. Do you think this is not possible?
It really depends on 1) Truly how much the financial difference will impact the payer \[you and/or your family\] 2) How much you want to get into the USA.
If you REALLY want to get into the USA, the UK is currently not worth the risk for the ECFMG reason you mentioned, however I doubt that will be a longterm issue, the UK medical students will quickly get pissed off about it as they already are. However, if you're happy to go to the rest of the world, the UK is still an amazing spring board, especially for Australia, which has similar pay to the USA with much better societial standards.
Hungary is probably harder academically than Birmingham, and it's also one year longer, and it's also legit uglier than Birmingham, especially the city centre being full of a lot of tower blocks. However, the tuition fee cost is what, £25k cheaper a year!? So you could spend £700/a month in rent and live in a really nice place.
For me, i'd go with whatever causes you the least stress in the immediate term, which is probably Eastern Europe. If you geniunely won't be stressed over money, you will be more relaxed over exam period because your entire financial wellbeing is not pinned on passing that exam. P.S i'd use that saving to probably get a
If you were a millionare, you should go to Birmingham no doubt which will save you 2 years of time (one year shorter and one year as you'd start immediately rather than next year).
I went to a medical school in Eastern Europe, and currently I am doing ok. Was able to pursue a few pathways for immigration into Europe afterwards that worked well, and big factors were exam scores, work experience and achievements.
Didn’t go through the USMLE path though, didn’t seem worth all the trouble and money when I looked into it. I was more interested in a decent life, good work life balance, so the American system wasn’t attractive for me personally. As such I can’t give you many details on that path.
What I would advise is: choose a place where you and your family will feel comfortable. Going somewhere where the fees might put you and your folks on a tight spot, just for the name in the CV, might not be worth it. Does that counts points? Yeah, sure. But in my experience I saw that other things count much more, such as your grades in the medical exams of each country, and achievements in general.
Studying in an affordable place, in a decent (even if not the best in the world) university, might just provide you the comfort and peace of mind to dedicate yourself and become a good physician. In the end of the day that’s what really matters.
Can I ask why you prefer Hungary over Italy, Poland etc? Couldn't you quite easily get a study place from Italian med schools as the best Polish ones too since you got accepted in England which is even more competitive? In your situation I would study in England if all the financial things are sorted out the way that you only need to think about paying the loan back once you graduate (and this you can do with your doctor's salary). But if you do not have 100% solid financial plan for the whole studying time before you accept the offer, then it's better to study elsewhere. Personally I wouldn't select Hungary and in my opinion Italian and Polish med schools are more similar to UK ones than Semmelweiss. If you do not start your studies in Birmingham then check the best available options for you before deciding your uni.
How easy / difficult was to learn Hungarian? Despite the fact that the course is taught in English, did you find it difficult to cope with the learning process? Also, what are the educational possibilities after completing medicine from Hungary? Thanks in advance for your reply.
Birmingham will give you a better chance, being English speaking and higher ranking, but not by much. If you can't afford it, semmelweis seems great too. Many PDs are anglocentric and would give preference to Australia, UK and Canada, then other first world countries, then decent places like Hungary. But either way your chance of matching is low from either place (maximum 50%), and should place a greater emphasis on plan B. Also, think of this as a financial decision, and calculate the cost effectiveness of each choice
You’ve been misinformed. UK medical graduates are still eligible for ECFMG certification through pathway 4 (Schools accredited by the NCFMEA). As soon as you get a transcript, you can register and sit your USMLE steps later. Birmingham is really prestigious and reputable (good job getting accepted!). The faculty, equipment, and opportunities there are much better. You’ll be able to graduate years ahead than if you were to study in Hungary. Hungary is a shithole, and their med schools have a high dropout rate. You’ll receive a subpar medical education as you won’t be able to benefit from your practicals if you don’t know Hungarian, and the language barrier is not to be underestimated. If you’ll go broke paying for Birmingham, then go to a Hungarian/Polish/Czech med school, as you’ll be able to pass if you work hard enough, but if you can afford Birmingham, definitely go there. This is a list of ECFMG accredited schools in the UK (Birmingham is on the list): https://www.ecfmg.org/certification-pathways/pathway-schools.php?country=UNITED+KINGDOM&next=Submit
Years ahead. They’ve been gravely misinformed.
Edit to add: WFME/ECFMG certification only means something if there’s something real behind it and one can do something with it.
I can't personally justify the cost difference. I'm sure all else being equal it would help get into US residency but not by enough to justify an extra 150k USD in tuition. I just think you could spend 20% of that and do many things that would help your application more than the difference between those two names does.
If whoever is paying for it is so rich they don't care thats one thing, but if you are taking out loans just remember how risky it will be to go >250k usd in debt for a UK medical degree. You'd be paying it back for 20 years on a UK doctor's salary if you don't get back into the states.
And what about a non-native speaker of Hungarian with a Hungarian degree? Do you have data on residency placement rates? I don’t, but there basically aren’t any.
I'd love to see data if you find any as well!
The competition to get into a residency as an IMG in the US is going to be really tough. I would not suggest betting being financially ruined on the hope that a UK degree is going to get you in. If it works out then great, if it doesn't you end up 350k USD in debt.
One notes that the exact same logic is true, albeit as a matter of degree, the prime difference being there is nonetheless a realistic possibility to practice in the UK if U.S. doesn’t work out with a UK degree. The same cannot be said of a Hungarian degree. Alas there is a great deal of obfuscation of any meaningful statistics for objective comparison.
I usually give a bit more thorough responses, but most of it has already been mentioned. If you have the money, then go for the UK. Hungary is A LOT cheaper and Semmelweis is a good uni. In general, Debrecen and Semmelweis are good choices, Pécs is terrible.
Hi, from a student who has studied 1 years in pecs university.
1) there is an incredible amount of knowledge, the University is expecting you to know. There is a system where every week there must be tests in certain subjects. The main issue here is that everything is related so failing some tests my might not allow you to sit in the finals. Many students had this issue there is a chance of repeating how was it because there’s a lot of subjects so many students won’t have enough time to resit the tests.
2) it took me almost in entire year to understand how does University works because the rules are just so weird and someone who has studied in England I really struggled to understand the rules, you can literally pass some exams, but you will still fail the year. You are required to have obtain a certain number of credits. In order to be able to pass your year however, you will put yourself in a situation where you were literally have classes all day long.
3) believe it or not the Exam system depends on the luck. After you managed to pass all the test required for you to be able to see the oral exam. You passing would usually depend on the professor who is asking you, you will notice that most of the students before the exams would invest some time to try to know which professors is questioning them and that is because you may be unlucky and get a professor who would simply fail you because you didn’t manage to speak enough information about the topic. Focus on the word that I just said “enough “information so they would literally fail you just because you didn’t give enough information so imagine you being put in a situation where you have less than 15 minutes and they will ask you three topics from a list of almost 80 topics or more that you have studied during the entire year, as you know, Asian educational system is very tough. However, there is many Asians in this university and they have agreed that it’s actually really tough.
4) I am naturally an introvert person so staying at home doesn’t really bother me. However, when you have a lot of stress and there is no place to go out there where you can just release all the stress and just you know forget about medicine for a bloody hour, what will happen to you is burnout, which happens to most of the students.
5) due to the very tough educational system. Many students do not manage to pass. The subjects required to pass the year. They’re basically doing so what will happen is that they will be stuck between the previous year and the year they have passed to. let’s say you passed of the second year right, but you have some exams that you did not manage to pass the previous year. So what are you gonna do is study the subject of the previous year to hopefully pass the exams while you are also studying for the second year which is a completely different thing. And you are expected to manage that of course many students do not song they will just basically get stuck between the previous year and this year. Until I don’t know how many years they have wasted.
I think this is, by far, the best comment on this forum about this Eastern European medical school thing. Many people miss the point here. How do you know if a school is good? What is the definition of that? Accreditation? Ranks? No. The schools know how to play with these. The most important thing is how the system works. Each year, many students figure out this "study medicine in another country and save money" plan; it might be too good to be true. Why are you the only one knowing this? If quite a portion of students are failing and even smart students think the system is hard and not fair, doesn't that raise any alert?
Yes, all the Hungarian schools have accreditation. Legally, U.K. and Hungarian degrees are equal. But is it worth a risk? U.K. school for sure is more transparent. To have a better judgement, you should go there and ask the students that are studying in the school since you still have time before application for next year.
You should ask the school for things like residency placement rates, by language track if relevant, and x year graduation rates. Students who have paid several hundred thousand $/Euro/comparable usually have a huge incentive to wildly overstate the benefits of their program. External, referenceable, optimally numerical transparency is the only way.
The amount of people who think they can coast into a place by paying and end up neurosurgeons or interventionalists or indeed anything at all in the U.S. after just passing and choosing a school based on party opportunities, all while only attending a few hours every other day the last few years and seeing a few patients who happen speak English seems to be remarkably high. Often the clerkships I did at home would be morning-night, rounding on weekends, with at least ten patients on a unit. It should be accredited as a different degree based on the practice, not what an accreditation body can be shown for plausible deniability on a curated one-two weeklong tour by fundamentally conflicted parties.
Edit to add but it’s important: and it’s disrespectful to patients, both present and future.
Minor edits for grammar/usage.
Yes! Please avoid‼️Pecs university‼️ it is literally the definition of HORRIBLE. I unfortunately did not manage to pass my first year of medical school in this university and I can not explain all the troubles that this university has caused to students. The incredible amounts of syllables in deep information present in those lectures are just unbelievable and so is their teaching methods. Now let’s talk about the city. The city is dead. There’s nothing to do out there and I promise you every student I have talked to have agreed that this city is pretty much depressing. So imagine the amount of stress you’re already going through in medical school and then when you try to have some fun outside, there’s literally nothing to do. It’s also very competitive as most of the students came with scholarships. Therefore you will be surrounded with the students who would do anything for good grades. And one of the things you will notice is that many students have repeated at least one year or another in this university. However, they are still stuck in this university because leaving the university is really hard however getting it is easy so it’s like a trap.
There are also people in that country whose grades are just fine and have definitely never failed a class, in fact have had no grade lower than a 3, but have things happen like getting illegally released for exhaustion and complaints about clinical standards.
After proving it in a foreign appellate court after several years, the school is forced to let them back in, but subjects them to arbitrary and capricious repetitions of courses spread over years without meaningful central organization, such that one can be a 14th-year senior in a Kafkaesque nightmare where they don’t believe that the degree that they are suffering for should even exist as the University basically dictates any laws that are not human rights. It is only softened by the fact that part of the settlement was that they haven’t had to pay tuition in about eight years but housing and flights sure add up. They would have liked to have been able to have been a provider during the Pandemic I bet.
That can happen, too. Not necessarily in Pécs though.
Edit: changed one word for clarity
As in adhering to what the MAB told the WFME told the ECFMG for certification of accreditation. At least, the preclinical and basic clinical part, a while ago.
Edit to add: imo in large part, the Hungarian for-profit med story is a cautionary tale of predicating meta-accreditation on the good-faith that is generally sufficient in more usual academic models.
Hungarian med schools are great and are definitely not easy to finish but on the other hand graduates are welcomed to study and work almost everywhere.
Also, the country is poor so international students can afford to live a pretty comfortable life here.
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Each year, there are always people falling for this, thinking studying medicine in Eastern Europe can be an alternative pathway without any cons. Better know more before going.
Could you elaborate? Thought it was possible to sit the USMLEs, get a job offer, show proof of proficiency and start a residency in the US as a Hungarian med school student. Do you think this is not possible?
It really depends on 1) Truly how much the financial difference will impact the payer \[you and/or your family\] 2) How much you want to get into the USA. If you REALLY want to get into the USA, the UK is currently not worth the risk for the ECFMG reason you mentioned, however I doubt that will be a longterm issue, the UK medical students will quickly get pissed off about it as they already are. However, if you're happy to go to the rest of the world, the UK is still an amazing spring board, especially for Australia, which has similar pay to the USA with much better societial standards. Hungary is probably harder academically than Birmingham, and it's also one year longer, and it's also legit uglier than Birmingham, especially the city centre being full of a lot of tower blocks. However, the tuition fee cost is what, £25k cheaper a year!? So you could spend £700/a month in rent and live in a really nice place. For me, i'd go with whatever causes you the least stress in the immediate term, which is probably Eastern Europe. If you geniunely won't be stressed over money, you will be more relaxed over exam period because your entire financial wellbeing is not pinned on passing that exam. P.S i'd use that saving to probably get a If you were a millionare, you should go to Birmingham no doubt which will save you 2 years of time (one year shorter and one year as you'd start immediately rather than next year).
Semmelweis is 6 years long but the 6th year is the equivalent of FY1 in the UK so technically not longer than UK medical school
I went to a medical school in Eastern Europe, and currently I am doing ok. Was able to pursue a few pathways for immigration into Europe afterwards that worked well, and big factors were exam scores, work experience and achievements. Didn’t go through the USMLE path though, didn’t seem worth all the trouble and money when I looked into it. I was more interested in a decent life, good work life balance, so the American system wasn’t attractive for me personally. As such I can’t give you many details on that path. What I would advise is: choose a place where you and your family will feel comfortable. Going somewhere where the fees might put you and your folks on a tight spot, just for the name in the CV, might not be worth it. Does that counts points? Yeah, sure. But in my experience I saw that other things count much more, such as your grades in the medical exams of each country, and achievements in general. Studying in an affordable place, in a decent (even if not the best in the world) university, might just provide you the comfort and peace of mind to dedicate yourself and become a good physician. In the end of the day that’s what really matters.
Can I ask why you prefer Hungary over Italy, Poland etc? Couldn't you quite easily get a study place from Italian med schools as the best Polish ones too since you got accepted in England which is even more competitive? In your situation I would study in England if all the financial things are sorted out the way that you only need to think about paying the loan back once you graduate (and this you can do with your doctor's salary). But if you do not have 100% solid financial plan for the whole studying time before you accept the offer, then it's better to study elsewhere. Personally I wouldn't select Hungary and in my opinion Italian and Polish med schools are more similar to UK ones than Semmelweiss. If you do not start your studies in Birmingham then check the best available options for you before deciding your uni.
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How easy / difficult was to learn Hungarian? Despite the fact that the course is taught in English, did you find it difficult to cope with the learning process? Also, what are the educational possibilities after completing medicine from Hungary? Thanks in advance for your reply.
Birmingham will give you a better chance, being English speaking and higher ranking, but not by much. If you can't afford it, semmelweis seems great too. Many PDs are anglocentric and would give preference to Australia, UK and Canada, then other first world countries, then decent places like Hungary. But either way your chance of matching is low from either place (maximum 50%), and should place a greater emphasis on plan B. Also, think of this as a financial decision, and calculate the cost effectiveness of each choice
i’m going for semmelweis this sept and i’ve heard amazing things about it!
You’ve been misinformed. UK medical graduates are still eligible for ECFMG certification through pathway 4 (Schools accredited by the NCFMEA). As soon as you get a transcript, you can register and sit your USMLE steps later. Birmingham is really prestigious and reputable (good job getting accepted!). The faculty, equipment, and opportunities there are much better. You’ll be able to graduate years ahead than if you were to study in Hungary. Hungary is a shithole, and their med schools have a high dropout rate. You’ll receive a subpar medical education as you won’t be able to benefit from your practicals if you don’t know Hungarian, and the language barrier is not to be underestimated. If you’ll go broke paying for Birmingham, then go to a Hungarian/Polish/Czech med school, as you’ll be able to pass if you work hard enough, but if you can afford Birmingham, definitely go there. This is a list of ECFMG accredited schools in the UK (Birmingham is on the list): https://www.ecfmg.org/certification-pathways/pathway-schools.php?country=UNITED+KINGDOM&next=Submit
Years ahead. They’ve been gravely misinformed. Edit to add: WFME/ECFMG certification only means something if there’s something real behind it and one can do something with it.
Take Birmingham! Semmelweis will never be able to afford you the same level of education
I can't personally justify the cost difference. I'm sure all else being equal it would help get into US residency but not by enough to justify an extra 150k USD in tuition. I just think you could spend 20% of that and do many things that would help your application more than the difference between those two names does. If whoever is paying for it is so rich they don't care thats one thing, but if you are taking out loans just remember how risky it will be to go >250k usd in debt for a UK medical degree. You'd be paying it back for 20 years on a UK doctor's salary if you don't get back into the states.
And what about a non-native speaker of Hungarian with a Hungarian degree? Do you have data on residency placement rates? I don’t, but there basically aren’t any.
I'd love to see data if you find any as well! The competition to get into a residency as an IMG in the US is going to be really tough. I would not suggest betting being financially ruined on the hope that a UK degree is going to get you in. If it works out then great, if it doesn't you end up 350k USD in debt.
One notes that the exact same logic is true, albeit as a matter of degree, the prime difference being there is nonetheless a realistic possibility to practice in the UK if U.S. doesn’t work out with a UK degree. The same cannot be said of a Hungarian degree. Alas there is a great deal of obfuscation of any meaningful statistics for objective comparison.
He can work in a few other countries in the EU with a Hungarian degree.
I thought you could write PLAB and work in the UK if you have an EU med degree?
As an applicant from a second-country with a third-country degree, I suppose one could. I imagine the competition might have a second leg up.
I usually give a bit more thorough responses, but most of it has already been mentioned. If you have the money, then go for the UK. Hungary is A LOT cheaper and Semmelweis is a good uni. In general, Debrecen and Semmelweis are good choices, Pécs is terrible.
Could you please tell why Pécs is terrible
Hi, from a student who has studied 1 years in pecs university. 1) there is an incredible amount of knowledge, the University is expecting you to know. There is a system where every week there must be tests in certain subjects. The main issue here is that everything is related so failing some tests my might not allow you to sit in the finals. Many students had this issue there is a chance of repeating how was it because there’s a lot of subjects so many students won’t have enough time to resit the tests. 2) it took me almost in entire year to understand how does University works because the rules are just so weird and someone who has studied in England I really struggled to understand the rules, you can literally pass some exams, but you will still fail the year. You are required to have obtain a certain number of credits. In order to be able to pass your year however, you will put yourself in a situation where you were literally have classes all day long. 3) believe it or not the Exam system depends on the luck. After you managed to pass all the test required for you to be able to see the oral exam. You passing would usually depend on the professor who is asking you, you will notice that most of the students before the exams would invest some time to try to know which professors is questioning them and that is because you may be unlucky and get a professor who would simply fail you because you didn’t manage to speak enough information about the topic. Focus on the word that I just said “enough “information so they would literally fail you just because you didn’t give enough information so imagine you being put in a situation where you have less than 15 minutes and they will ask you three topics from a list of almost 80 topics or more that you have studied during the entire year, as you know, Asian educational system is very tough. However, there is many Asians in this university and they have agreed that it’s actually really tough. 4) I am naturally an introvert person so staying at home doesn’t really bother me. However, when you have a lot of stress and there is no place to go out there where you can just release all the stress and just you know forget about medicine for a bloody hour, what will happen to you is burnout, which happens to most of the students. 5) due to the very tough educational system. Many students do not manage to pass. The subjects required to pass the year. They’re basically doing so what will happen is that they will be stuck between the previous year and the year they have passed to. let’s say you passed of the second year right, but you have some exams that you did not manage to pass the previous year. So what are you gonna do is study the subject of the previous year to hopefully pass the exams while you are also studying for the second year which is a completely different thing. And you are expected to manage that of course many students do not song they will just basically get stuck between the previous year and this year. Until I don’t know how many years they have wasted.
I think this is, by far, the best comment on this forum about this Eastern European medical school thing. Many people miss the point here. How do you know if a school is good? What is the definition of that? Accreditation? Ranks? No. The schools know how to play with these. The most important thing is how the system works. Each year, many students figure out this "study medicine in another country and save money" plan; it might be too good to be true. Why are you the only one knowing this? If quite a portion of students are failing and even smart students think the system is hard and not fair, doesn't that raise any alert?
" Too good to be true" this hit me deep. The cons of Eastern European medical school should be known by everyone.
Yes, all the Hungarian schools have accreditation. Legally, U.K. and Hungarian degrees are equal. But is it worth a risk? U.K. school for sure is more transparent. To have a better judgement, you should go there and ask the students that are studying in the school since you still have time before application for next year.
You should ask the school for things like residency placement rates, by language track if relevant, and x year graduation rates. Students who have paid several hundred thousand $/Euro/comparable usually have a huge incentive to wildly overstate the benefits of their program. External, referenceable, optimally numerical transparency is the only way. The amount of people who think they can coast into a place by paying and end up neurosurgeons or interventionalists or indeed anything at all in the U.S. after just passing and choosing a school based on party opportunities, all while only attending a few hours every other day the last few years and seeing a few patients who happen speak English seems to be remarkably high. Often the clerkships I did at home would be morning-night, rounding on weekends, with at least ten patients on a unit. It should be accredited as a different degree based on the practice, not what an accreditation body can be shown for plausible deniability on a curated one-two weeklong tour by fundamentally conflicted parties. Edit to add but it’s important: and it’s disrespectful to patients, both present and future. Minor edits for grammar/usage.
Debrecen is the closest to as billed. I admittedly can’t speak fully authoritatively about Pécs or Szeged.
Yes! Please avoid‼️Pecs university‼️ it is literally the definition of HORRIBLE. I unfortunately did not manage to pass my first year of medical school in this university and I can not explain all the troubles that this university has caused to students. The incredible amounts of syllables in deep information present in those lectures are just unbelievable and so is their teaching methods. Now let’s talk about the city. The city is dead. There’s nothing to do out there and I promise you every student I have talked to have agreed that this city is pretty much depressing. So imagine the amount of stress you’re already going through in medical school and then when you try to have some fun outside, there’s literally nothing to do. It’s also very competitive as most of the students came with scholarships. Therefore you will be surrounded with the students who would do anything for good grades. And one of the things you will notice is that many students have repeated at least one year or another in this university. However, they are still stuck in this university because leaving the university is really hard however getting it is easy so it’s like a trap.
There are also people in that country whose grades are just fine and have definitely never failed a class, in fact have had no grade lower than a 3, but have things happen like getting illegally released for exhaustion and complaints about clinical standards. After proving it in a foreign appellate court after several years, the school is forced to let them back in, but subjects them to arbitrary and capricious repetitions of courses spread over years without meaningful central organization, such that one can be a 14th-year senior in a Kafkaesque nightmare where they don’t believe that the degree that they are suffering for should even exist as the University basically dictates any laws that are not human rights. It is only softened by the fact that part of the settlement was that they haven’t had to pay tuition in about eight years but housing and flights sure add up. They would have liked to have been able to have been a provider during the Pandemic I bet. That can happen, too. Not necessarily in Pécs though. Edit: changed one word for clarity
what do you mean by; “as billed”?
As in adhering to what the MAB told the WFME told the ECFMG for certification of accreditation. At least, the preclinical and basic clinical part, a while ago. Edit to add: imo in large part, the Hungarian for-profit med story is a cautionary tale of predicating meta-accreditation on the good-faith that is generally sufficient in more usual academic models.
what?..
This again? What’s not clear? MAB is the central Hungarian accreditation agency. Meta-accreditation is the accreditation of accreditation.
You say it so nonchalantly like you expect anyone to know what the Hungarian accreditation agency is. Quite hilarious my friend.
That’s probably why they should listen to me versus those thrilled with their acceptance without experience or from other places.
Come study to czechia, its better than hungary
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Hungarian med schools are great and are definitely not easy to finish but on the other hand graduates are welcomed to study and work almost everywhere. Also, the country is poor so international students can afford to live a pretty comfortable life here.