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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Educ.

Sec. Higher Education

Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1647568

For Profit Medicine: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly faces of Offshore Medical Education

Provisionally accepted
  • The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

In recent decades, a large number of students from the United States, Canada, and, to a lesser extent, other countries have pursued medical education at offshore for-profit medical schools, primarily in the Caribbean.Although these schools offer an alternative path into the medical profession for students who may not be admitted to domestic medical schools, this pathway is confounded by risks and controversies. This article explores the good, the bad, and the ugly faces of the for-profit offshore medical school model, while drawing distinctions between regional and for-profit institutions and highlighting regulatory, legal, and socioeconomic differences across Caribbean jurisdictions.

Keywords: For profit medicine, Offshore medical education, international medical graduates, Alternate medical schools, medical school and residency match

Received: 15 Jun 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Ghebre. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Yohannes T Ghebre, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, United States

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.