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Caribbean Medical Student Book Call

The Caribbean Path Check

Most Caribbean students learn what cost them the Match in their final year.

By then it is a consequence instead of a choice. Answer all 6 questions and you get a straight read on where you actually stand. About two minutes.

  1. 1 6 questions about your situation
  2. 2 Your read, and the Playbook free either way
  3. 3 Book a free 20-minute call, only if you want one

Free. No score to be judged on, and nothing to buy.

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Written by a physician who took this route himself. Free.

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What is inside

The things nobody sits you down and explains.

Every figure sourced to NRMP, AAMC, ECFMG or a state board.

Yours free, in about two minutes.

Contents

  1. A 14-cell rubric for evaluating any Caribbean school
  2. ECFMG Pathways for Caribbean graduates
  3. 2026 NRMP Match data, headlines first
  4. 2026 CaRMS data for Canadians
  5. US state medical board licensure
  6. AAMC cost of attendance and debt benchmarks
  7. The two accreditation frameworks

What the research shows

Coaching doctors is a studied intervention, not a marketing idea. Here is what the trials measured.

Medical students, coached one to one by physicians

0.76

effect size for self-efficacy, which is a medium effect

Four sessions with a physician moved self-efficacy and resilience together.

Read the study detail

Fifth-year medical students on clinical clerkships were given four weekly one-on-one coaching sessions of about 30 minutes, delivered by trained attending physicians. Self-efficacy rose from 71.0 to 77.5 and resilience from 18.5 to 21.4, both statistically significant, with effect sizes of 0.76 and 0.75. Those are medium effects. The honest caveat is that this was a small single-center study of 15 students measured before and after, with no control group, so it shows a signal rather than proof.

Practicing physicians, randomized trial

22 pts

gap in burnout change against the control group

Three and a half hours of coaching moved burnout further than most interventions do.

Read the study detail

A randomized trial of 88 physicians gave one group six individual telephone coaching sessions over about five months, totaling three and a half hours. Overall burnout fell 17.1 percent in absolute terms in that group and rose 4.9 percent among controls, a difference of 22.0 percentage points. Emotional exhaustion fell 6.7 points against control, and quality of life and resilience both improved. All four outcomes were statistically significant.

Residents, randomized trial

1.27 pts

drop in impostor syndrome against the control group

In residency, coaching moved exhaustion and impostor syndrome at the same time.

Read the study detail

A randomized trial of 101 resident physicians ran a six-month coaching program. Emotional exhaustion fell 4.33 points against control, impostor syndrome fell 1.27 points and self-compassion rose 6.88 points, all statistically significant. Depersonalization, professional accomplishment and moral injury did not move. Impostor syndrome is the one worth noticing here, because it is the feeling most often described by people who trained outside the United States.

Two limits worth stating plainly. None of these studies measured Match outcomes or exam scores, so anyone claiming research proves coaching improves your odds of matching is describing a trial that does not exist. And the largest study of medical students, 390 of them across seven schools, improved self-compassion and flourishing but did not reduce burnout. It tested a web-based group program rather than one-to-one work with a physician, which is the difference this page is asking you to notice. A formal systematic review of coaching and student wellbeing is under way, and the field still suffers from using the word coaching for what is really teaching or mentoring.

References

  1. 1. Yokoh, H., Shikino, K., Kasai, H. et al. Impact of coaching on medical students during their clinical clerkship: a mixed-methods study. Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development, 13 (2026). Link
  2. 2. Dyrbye, L. N., Shanafelt, T. D., Gill, P. R. et al. Effect of a professional coaching intervention on the well-being and distress of physicians: a pilot randomized clinical trial. JAMA Internal Medicine, 179(10), 1406 to 1414 (2019). Link
  3. 3. Fainstad, T., Mann, A., Suresh, K. et al. Effect of a novel online group-coaching program to reduce burnout in female resident physicians: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open, 5(5), e2210752 (2022). Link
  4. 4. Mann, A., Fainstad, T., Sullivan, I. et al. Impact of an online group-coaching program on medical student well-being: a randomized clinical trial. PLoS One, 20(8), e0328546 (2025). Link
  5. 5. Breslin, L., Dyrbye, L., Chelf, C. and West, C. Effects of coaching on medical student well-being and distress: a systematic review protocol. BMJ Open, 13(8), e073214 (2023). Link
  6. 6. Lovell, B. What do we know about coaching in medical education? A literature review. Medical Education, 52(4), 376 to 390 (2018). Link
  7. 7. Santiesteban, L., Young, E., Tiarks, G. C. et al. Defining advising, coaching, and mentoring for student development in medical education. Cureus, 14(7), e27356 (2022). Link

Figures read out of the source papers and verified as of August 12, 2026.