One of the most important things a prospective medical student can look at when evaluating a school is what actually happens to graduates after they leave. Not just match rates and board scores, but real stories from real people about where they ended up, what their path looked like, and how their training at INTEC shaped the kind of physician or healthcare professional they became. We are opening this thread specifically for INTEC alumni and near-graduates to share their journeys. Where did you match or land after INTEC? What did your training prepare you for that you didn’t expect? Have you gone on to do work with a broader impact, whether in your community, your country, or internationally? This thread will be linked from our INTEC school profile and pinned for incoming students. Share your story here and help the next generation make an informed decision.
i graduated from INTEC five years ago and matched into internal medicine at a community hospital in new jersey on my first attempt. i’m now a second year attending and i run a continuity clinic for uninsured patients two afternoons a week on top of my regular schedule. i want to be upfront that the road after a Caribbean school is not easy and it requires more hustle than my colleagues who went to US MD programs. but i also think the patient population i trained with in the Dr. gave me a clinical instinct that i genuinely believe makes me a better doctor. i’m not romanticizing it, it was hard. it was worth it.
i took a less traditional route after graduating. i did not go straight into a US residency. i went back to haiti where i’m originally from and spent two years working with an ngo running mobile health clinics in rural communities. the experience i had at INTEC working with patients in resource-limited settings in the Dr. translated directly. i eventually matched into family medicine in canada and now i do global health work through my hospital’s international program. INTEC didn’t just train me to pass boards. it trained me to function in environments where you don’t always have everything you need and that has been the most important skill i have.
matched into psychiatry in florida three years ago and i currently work at a community mental health center that serves a largely hispanic immigrant population. my time in the Dr., including just living there and navigating a different language and culture every single day, shaped how i connect with patients in ways that are hard to quantify but i notice it constantly. my attendings during residency commented on it. cultural competency is not something you get from a lecture. you get it from actually being immersed. INTEC gave me that whether it intended to or not.
this is exactly the kind of post i needed to read tonight. i’m in my second year and some days i wonder if i made the right call choosing a caribbean school. knowing that the path is harder but genuinely doable for people who put in the work is what keeps me going. thank you for being specific about where you landed and what it actually looked like.
i want to share a story that isn’t a traditional success story by the usual metrics because i think it’s worth hearing. i graduated from INTEC and did not match my first year out. i went back, did more clinical rotations, strengthened my application, and matched into pediatrics on my second attempt. i’m now two years into residency and i love my work. the year between attempts was genuinely brutal and i questioned everything. but i want anyone reading this who is in that gap year to know that it is not the end and it is not a verdict on whether you belong in medicine. it’s a setback. there’s a difference.
i matched into general surgery in texas and i am now two years post residency working at a hospital that serves a rural underserved county. i do a lot of cases that in a bigger hospital would go to subspecialists because we just don’t have them here. my training at INTEC in terms of sheer patient volume and case variety during clinical rotations absolutely prepared me for that reality. i was not a passenger on rounds. i was expected to know my patients, think through management, and engage. that expectation from early on is what made me ready for the kind of independent practice i do now.