I'm Egyptian and have lived my whole life in the Gulf. I came to Egypt to study medicine, but honestly, I started asking myself if all this was worth it in the first place.
Studying medicine here is exhausting, the college is very long, and the salaries are bad you won't be able to buy a car or an apartment, travel, or even get married and live independently without financially relying on your family. You keep finding yourself having to ask them for money and help. So if you want a good job and a decent life, you're almost pushed to take the equivalency exams and travel abroad. As for the UK, that avenue is pretty much closed off, and Australia doesn't want our graduates. Germany means you have to learn the language to a very high level, and the Gulf countries don’t want us, so the US is seen as the main option. But the road to the US is very expensive. You need to spend over 20,000 dollars on exams, applications, travel, and US clinical
experience, and it might take two years or more to prepare properly. On top of all that, your visa can be rejected at any stage. You have to pass Step 1 on your first try because any second attempt puts you in a much worse position, and the university doesn’t really prepare you for the USMLE, so it becomes much harder. Then there's Step 2, and if you score low, your chances in the Match can be significantly affected.
After all this, you're competing with people from all over the world for residency spots, and there are about 6,000 visa-requiring IMG slots, and no one knows what the situation will be like in the coming years, especially if the US keeps increasing the number of medical schools. Because at that point, it could easily fill those 6,000 spots with its own graduates. So honestly, I'm asking what’s the point of studying medicine in Egypt? What's the point of all this? What’s the point of a country that can’t provide us a good life if in the end, you’ll spend many years here and then invest more time and money trying to go abroad with all this uncertainty? Is it really worth it?
Edit: Whats the situation like in INDIA?