My ECFMG Journey With the New MyIntealth Interface(Part 1)

 So my journey began when I was in second year of my medical school. Now keep in mind that I'm Indian and When I say 2nd year I mean halfway through becoming a doctor and just few months away from taking Step 1.

I'm a 2017 batch medical school graduate. So when I was ending my 2nd year I already logged into ECFMG website and made myself an account. Then I started reading the handbook, and found that there is something known as WDOMS and Sponsors Note.

The world directory of Medical Schools is like an international directory. Having information about all the medical schools and their programs. And in that you can search any medical school that is or was operational. Once you have found your medical school you click on the name and they show you the dedicated school page. On that there is a section about sponsors note. in this different accrediting agencies give you sponsor note for your college/school. Kinda saying that they trust your school with studies and training. 

So I went to WDOMS and tried finding my school. Being new and we(2017) being the second batch my school wasn't listed in the WDOMS. So I and along with my friend, who also wanted to sit for USMLE, wrote emails to WDOMS followed by numerous reminders, Informing them about our school and that they can find the related information on NMC website about our college.

Finally our school was listed. We were Happy but we still lacked the Sponsors Note. So our next goal was set. Getting the sponsors note. We wrote to ECFMG and waited but no response. Then we called and were informed that we must ask our dean/principal to write to them from his official college/school email ID and get both the schools as well as his ID registered with the. Then through them a request has to be made for ECFMG sponsors note form. And that will be given when first batch graduates. So it meant that our senior batch has to pass then only we'd be able to request for sponsors note. Thankfully there were few people in my senior batch who were studying for USMLE. so we informed them. Now keep in mind that in India 1 year mandatory internship is the part of course. After which your considered graduate. Plus the Form has to be submitted with the Governing or recognising body's Seal so we filled the form and sent it to India's National Body for their Seal, and to be forwarded to ECFMG for consideration.

Once my seniors graduated they took over from us and started the request for sponsor note. We got it but only for that particular Academic year. How this works is if your college has sponsors note, your eligible for taking USMLE examination but the catch is the sponsor note is given in two ways :

1) to a particular academic year, means that students who graduated in that particular academic year are only allowed to appear.

2) from start of a academic year to till 'Current' status. means its ongoing

Second is preferred. But it take at least 2-3 academic years after first batch to get it. In my case it took 3.

So finally I graduated by that time and soon the ECFMG portal had its transition to MyIntealth.

So Officially my journey started with MyIntealth. So I'm gonna talk about how I started and till where I am.

As I already had an account with ECFMG I had to access my account which was premade on MyIntealth portal using the my registered email id, and the some password related work. once I was able to get the password set and log into my account, I read the new handbook.

Here on MyIntealth, I filled my application form for account creation and identity verification. Here they asked me about my qualification and the medical school. Also I was asked to upload my Passport for identity verification by a NotaryCam. The fees that they charged was $100 and yes it was paid using a credit card. Tho there were news that in MyIntealth debit cards will also work but till now that isn't the option, the only other option was internet banking. After fee payment, my initial application was submitted and a 'CASE No.' was generated from where I could track the progress. After initial acceptance I received an email for scheduling NotaryCam appointment.

Now keep in mind that you have only 14 days from the day of submitting documents and paying the fees to schedule notary appointment. Mine happened to be the 12th day when all this happened so I tried to do it at the earliest. The NotaryCam service is available from 7am till 11pm, USA timing, so see accordingly .

 

There are 2 ways you can have this option, the notary one, first join the pool and wait your turn, or schedule your appointment.

I choose to join the pool and had to wait around 5-6 minutes before the portal gave me my turn. I had to sit with my passport and using NotaryCam I was asked to click a picture of my passport using the webcam and later I was asked some simple questions and was asked to show the passport to the officer . It was all done in 5 minutes and the officer was humble also explaining all the steps.

Then it took 4 days for ECFMG to verify and upload the portal and my way to filling the application for credential verification was opened.

In this all my previous data was already there and I had to Upload my final Diploma/Degree as well as my final year Transcript/Marksheet.

There were 3 new thing that this section asked:

1) Month and year of END Attendance

2) Month and year of Graduation

3) Month and year of Degree Issue

Yes they ask you in the very beginning when you entered the course. So that is already with them. Now the confusion that me and my peers had was what we give in in month and year of end attendance. As here in india wee count internship as part of the course. So we are marking our attendance and the we are issued ICC(Internship completion Certificate) but we never upload it anywhere. Regarding this I emailed as well as tried calling the ECFMG number, but it wasn't answered. Now one thing to keep in mind is that we have 6 months From the date we start our application for getting everything done. the reply of the email came but still the topic wasn't addressed. Then I contacted my college and they advised that I put my ICC date as end of attendance and convocation as my Graduation date and Issue date that is there on the degree as issue date and as ECFMG is going to ask them to verify the dates they will be sending those same so it won't cause any confusion on both sides as well as no problem will come up as they have those dates in their records.

After this I uploaded the documents. Also they asked for final year transcript/marksheet. So keep these handy. Also they would want you to upload a new photograph that's not old than 6 months for easy verification, so keep that in mind. After that I paid the fees again with the credit card, and now I'm waiting.

Now let's talk about the fees that I paid and how they differ from the previous setup.

IMG courtesy Google.

Here is a comparison that I was able to find on Google. And it's very true. Till now I have paid :

$100 for MyIntealth account creation.

$760 for ECFMG Certification and Credential Verification

All in all the final cost has increased by $50 but this feels Heavy as the Initial cost is high and later the cost isn't that high. The reason that I could find for this on net was that they had a Very large Database of people who weren't serious so these costs were introduced to keep them at bay. 

But we must also keep in mind that B&B videos and Question bank, plus NBME costs are also to be added in the initial cost, and the total addition is around $1150 without NBME as that I'd take that near the exam.

So totally till now $2010 is what I've invested.

And still am waiting for credential verification and certification. which takes around 25-30 Days.

I'd Write again as soon as the process moves ahead for me or if there are some new Updates.