Career advice

[OPisIMG]

Hi guys, I'm a IMG currently doing my first years as research fellow at a very big name university in the US. 
My original goal was to get into nsgy and I've always known that it would be very hard as IMG, but I was nonetheless very committed. However many things happened in life in the mean time, so short story short, I don't know if I'm willing to spend my next 7 (8) years with no life outside of the hospital. 

I wanted to ask you if you could rate my chances of matching into neurosurgery after 1 year of fellowship with the following credentials. Also rate chances fo ENT or radiology as secondary options. My current research projects heavily overlap with these 2 fields:

Step 1 258
Step 2CK 260
YOG 2021
At least 7 good articles (not case reports / letter to authors / reviews) within the end of 2023, if not more.
Step 3 within the end of the year.

I know this is the 4chan of neurosurgery, but I still hope for serious answers 
thanks

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OP here, forgot to add:
will have 1-2 LoR

what about those chances after 2 years of research

[Guest]

It depends on who your mentor is.

[Guest]

You are completely fucked.

[Guest]

You have a shot. Any clinical experience?

[Guest]

Unlikely with only one year of research. Unless you are absolutely a star and your mentor is willing to put his/her reputation on the line and start making phone calls after only knowing you for so long. You need at least 2 - 3 years.

Also ENT and radiology are very competitive, especially for IMGs. You cannot just think of these as "plan B" and hope to get in.

As an IMG, you have to commit yourself to something and go all in. I'm an IMG myself and matched in nsgy many years ago. You can't be doubting yourself or not sure if you're willing to spend the next 7 years so and so.

Ask yourself what you really want and stick to it. Otherwise it will never work out.

[Guest]

A year is too little?! Med students get letters after 4 weeks. Come on now, that’s just torture to foreign grads. I’m a US resident and know this is BS. It’s all who you know. Putting in “your dues” is complete BS. All of my foreign coresidents on the most part have been stars and more passionate about neurosurgery then classmates from US who are more financially motivated and want to scrub the least amount of cases and go home early.

[Guest]

^^ us med students have to have 4 years of solid academic success. Plus they have to show solid performance in college to even get accepted. Completely different

[Guest]

OP here, as clinical experience: I was a NSGY intern (6mths) and resident (4mths) in my home country top hospital before leaving for the US. I'm from europe
Thank you everyone for your answers

[Guest]

If you're lgbt you might get in via quota

[Guest]

We would hear this “In my old country, I was a top doctor” a lot at interviews. Unless someone in the department knew that where someone trained actually was a big-deal hospital, we weren’t sure whether to believe it. The big informative thing that we could trust was how enthusiastic the PI or PD at the research institution was to hire them, since no smart IMG does research somewhere without a neurosurgery program. If they didn’t want to hire you as a resident, we generally didn’t want to, either. You think a 1-2/year program has some extra hidden spots?