Google Voice and it's uses for USMLE

Did it ever happen that try what you may, your mobile service provider’s voice-mail just refuses to get set-up??!!

I experienced that and I am thankful that it happened, else I would not have stumbled upon Google Voice. The only unfortunate part was that I really did not realized the potential of it until late in the interview season, to be frank towards the end.

So before I go into the details let me explain the reason why this post is here. The first thing that most of us do when our plane lands in the States is to hunt for a USA mobile service provider. Once that is done, it becomes the mode of contact for you and almost everyone else you get in touch with. But have you ever thought that once you are done with your electives, and it’s time to come back how will they contact you or vice versa? I do agree WhatsApp is a wise alternative, but it is generally registered on your home country number, which I do not think you will share with all of them except for the residents or your colleagues. Here is where Google Voice comes to the rescue.

So once you have finalized a decent USA mobile service provider and have the sim in hand, it is the ideal time to set up your Google Voice account. The different options for buying a sim are mentioned in my other post here. Registering for Google Voice is pretty simple and straightforward and the link is here. Once registered, there is an option to opt for a Google Voice mobile number, where you get pretty cool phone numbers to choose from to be frank. My number for example is +1-916-936-3451 (+1-916-93NEIL1). You can try various combinations and options to get a cool one for yourself. Once you have finished fiddling around to get a number, I would recommend you share this number with all your colleagues instead of the USA service provider’s number. The reason being, should anyone call you it automatically gets forwarded to your USA service provider’s number and, supposing you are unable to answer your phone when they call, Voice offers a voicemail service which even transcribes the voicemail to text which you can read when you do check your phone.

The advantage of Google Voice is that it does not lapse like the number that you get from your service provider should you not recharge it for 2-3 months. I mean once you  are back in your home country, why will you want to recharge your US number and not even use it? So even though your US number will be disconnected, should people message or call your Google voice number you will still receive the messages or calls on Voice or Hangouts, whichever is convenient for you. Last but not the least you can also call and send messages (SMS) from your Google Voice number as long as you have a working internet connection.

Hope this post helps future USMLE aspirants who can make complete use of this simple but potentially amazing offering from Google.

Disclaimer – I am not being paid anything by Google for this :P

Documents needed for electives

Since I had a big problem regarding the documents needed for electives, thought should make a quick short list for them.

Things from the college

• Medical Transcript 
• Clinical clerkship certificate 
• No objection certificate
• Primary language taught in the college for Medicine was English
• Can try getting a conduct certificate

Things to be done by self

• Curriculum Vitae 
• Personal statement (at least a rough copy)

Other documents

• LOR from the Dean or a person held in high regard (Should be a good one)
• Background clearance- This has to be done through the police. Would take minimum of a 5 days to a month, so take that into account.
• Malpractice insurance - IMG liability[ http://www.imgliability.com/buy/ ](cheapest and fastest) - This is the most expensive part after the money spent for your immunization tests. I have also listed towards the end of this post the other sites that you can use. (You can enter my name 'Neil Dominic Fernandes' or my email id neilnf@gmail.com in the "How you heard about us field" while getting a quote for the insurance and get an additional discount of $20.)
  P.S.- I get that as an amazon gift card with you getting the discount. Win-win situation IMHO :P
• Medical insurance- Bajaj Allianz (cheapest). 
• Recommend reading this post for understanding the concepts - http://electives.us/malprachealthins.html 

For the vaccination aspect

1. Letter stating that you have been vaccinated for Hepatitis B or Hep B titers- recommend titers
2. Letter stating that you have been vaccinated for Varicella or Varicella titers or a letter stating that you had chicken pox when you were a kid - Recommend letter stating you immunized.
3. For Tuberculosis - Monteux test. This will be most likely positive. Recommend getting a chest X-ray showing that you are TB negative. However, if to your misfortune, it is positive you will need to start the treatment.
4. Letter stating that you have been vaccinated for MMR or their titers
5. Letter stating that you have been vaccinated for DT or their titers
6. Flu shot if you going during the year end (so called flu season)

The cost for all the above vaccinations, comes to around 5k. Max. This is the information I got from my friends and seniors. Preferably get all the reports within a year prior to apply for the electives or you would have to repeat it, incurring additional costs. This is all I can remember now for the vaccination aspect. 

I would recommend checking each college's individual requirements, since the above documents are the ones I had, but note that the list is not limited to this only. Do check elective.us and umartariq which are really helpful sites. Above all, talk to your seniors and ask them for advice, since they know what problems you would face and will help you troubleshoot them, at least mine did.