Essential CV Building Tips for Caribbean IMGs in Emergency Medicine Residency

Understanding the Role of Your CV as a Caribbean IMG in EM

Your curriculum vitae (CV) is one of the most strategic tools you have as a Caribbean international medical graduate (IMG) applying to emergency medicine (EM). Program directors often spend less than a minute on a first scan of your CV, deciding whether to look deeper or move on. For Caribbean-trained applicants, that initial impression carries even more weight because it’s one of the quickest ways programs assess:

• The rigor of your clinical training (especially away/audition rotations)
• Your academic performance and test scores trajectory
• Your exposure to emergency medicine as a specialty
• Evidence of professionalism, reliability, and teamwork
• Your potential to succeed in a high-acuity, fast-paced residency

A strong CV won’t erase every limitation (like a low Step score or a gap year), but it can:

• Highlight your strengths strategically
• Frame weaknesses honestly but constructively
• Demonstrate that you understand US clinical systems and EM culture
• Differentiate you from hundreds of other applicants—especially fellow Caribbean IMGs

This article will walk you through how to build a CV for residency in emergency medicine as a Caribbean IMG, with specific residency CV tips, practical examples, and a section devoted to students from schools like SGU, AUC, Ross, Saba, etc., who are targeting an EM match.

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Core Principles of an Effective EM Residency CV

Before diving into sections and formatting, you need to understand what EM program directors actually look for and how they scan a CV.

What EM Programs Look for on a CV

Most EM application reviewers are skimming for:

1. Evidence of commitment to EM

   • EM rotations (especially US-based, academic and community)
   • EM-related research, quality improvement, or ultrasound projects
   • EM organizations (EMRA, ACEP, SAEM) involvement
   • EM-specific leadership (ED scribe leader, triage initiatives, EMS-related activities)

2. Demonstrated clinical excellence

   • Strong performance on core clerkships (especially Internal Medicine, Surgery, EM)
   • Sub-I or acting internship in EM or ICU
   • Objective achievements (honors, distinctions, evaluations quoting concrete strengths)

3. Professionalism and reliability

   • Long-term commitments (2–3+ years in an activity)
   • Progressive responsibility (member → leader → founder)
   • Evidence of teamwork, communication, and follow-through

4. Academic and scholarly potential

   • Publications, posters, presentations, or QI projects
   • Involvement in guideline development, policy, or education
   • Teaching experience (tutoring, peer teaching, workshops)

5. Fit with EM culture

   • Calm under pressure, adaptable, team-oriented
   • Experiences in high-acuity, resource-limited, or fast-paced settings
   • Pre-hospital, EMS, disaster/emergency response exposures

CV vs. Resume vs. ERAS Experience Section

For residency in the US, your “CV” serves two purposes:

• Formal CV: A separate PDF you may upload or email (especially for research or away rotations).
• ERAS application: Where you enter experiences, education, and publications. This essentially functions as your CV inside the match system.

Your content must be consistent between your formal CV and ERAS entries. Discrepancies (different dates, titles, hours) are red flags.

Key principle: Build the master CV first → then translate and adapt it to ERAS.

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Structuring Your EM Residency CV: Sections and Order

For a Caribbean IMG targeting emergency medicine, a clean, predictable structure helps reviewers quickly find what they care about most.

Recommended section order:

1. Contact Information & Identifiers
2. Education
3. USMLE/COMLEX Scores (optional on CV, but common for research/away applications)
4. Clinical Experience (Core & EM-specific Rotations)
5. Research & Scholarly Activity
6. Leadership, Volunteering & Extracurriculars
7. Certifications & Skills (ACLS, BLS, PALS, ultrasound, languages, etc.)
8. Honors & Awards
9. Professional Memberships

If you have significant pre-medical clinical or work experience (e.g., paramedic, nurse, scribe), you can add:

• Prior Clinical Experience (before medical school) or
• Work Experience

Contact Information & Identifiers

Include:

• Full name (as it appears in ERAS)
• Phone number (US number if possible)
• Professional email (Firstname.Lastname)
• City, State (do not need full address on CV)
• LinkedIn (optional, if updated and consistent)
• AAMC ID (optional, helpful for US faculty reviewing your CV)

Example:

John A. Doe, MD (Expected 2026)
Caribbean Medical University, School of Medicine
Phone: (555) 123-4567 | Email: john.doe.md@gmail.com
Current Location: Brooklyn, NY | AAMC ID: 12345678

Education

List in reverse chronological order. For Caribbean IMGs:

• Medical school (include campus and country)
• Graduation or expected graduation date
• Degree (MD)
• GPA/class rank only if strong and easily interpretable
• Relevant pre-med degrees as secondary entries

Example:

Caribbean Global University School of Medicine – St. George’s, Grenada
Doctor of Medicine (MD), Expected May 2026

University of Toronto – Toronto, ON, Canada
Bachelor of Science in Biology, June 2021

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Highlighting Clinical Experience for an EM Match

For an emergency medicine residency application, clinical experience is king. As a Caribbean IMG, this section can significantly influence how programs perceive your readiness for a US EM residency.

Separating Core Rotations and EM-Specific Experiences

On your residency CV, you can structure clinical experience as:

1. Core Clinical Rotations
   • Internal Medicine, Surgery, Pediatrics, OB/GYN, Psychiatry, Family Medicine
2. Emergency Medicine & Subspecialty Rotations
   • EM core rotations, EM electives, ICU, Trauma, EMS, Ultrasound, Toxicology

Why separate them? EM reviewers will go straight to see:

• How many weeks/months of EM you’ve done
• Where those rotations occurred (academic vs community; US vs Caribbean)
• Whether you had an EM sub-internship or acting internship

How to List Rotations

For each EM-relevant rotation, include:

• Rotation name and level (Core, Elective, Sub-I/Acting Internship)
• Institution and location (city, state, country)
• Dates and duration (e.g., 4 weeks, Aug 2024)
• Brief description with concrete responsibilities and skills (2–3 bullet points)

Example:

Emergency Medicine Sub-Internship
Brooklyn Medical Center, Department of Emergency Medicine – Brooklyn, NY
August 2024 (4 weeks)

• Managed 8–10 patients per shift under direct supervision, including undifferentiated chest pain, sepsis, stroke, and trauma evaluations.
• Performed focused physical exams, formulated differential diagnoses, and presented care plans to senior residents and attendings.
• Gained procedural exposure to laceration repair, incision and drainage, splinting, and basic ultrasound-guided IV placement.

Caribbean-specific tip:
If your early rotations were completed in the Caribbean and later ones in the US, highlight your US-based rotations more prominently, especially those at well-known EM training sites. You want to show that you’ve been evaluated in US clinical environments similar to residency.

Dealing with Limited EM Rotations

Some Caribbean schools offer fewer EM rotations, or you may not secure many US-based EM electives. To still strengthen the EM narrative:

• Emphasize ICU, trauma surgery, anesthesia, and urgent care rotations
• Highlight high-acuity or ED-like experiences (e.g., night float, rapid response teams)
• Show involvement in ED-related QI projects or EMS exposure

Example bullet on an ICU rotation:

• Collaborated with multidisciplinary teams to manage critically ill patients, including sepsis, respiratory failure, and post-cardiac arrest care, reinforcing skills directly applicable to emergency medicine.

Addressing Gaps and Delays

Gaps are common in the Caribbean pipeline (Step delays, remediations, immigration processes). On the CV:

• Do not leave unexplained blank time periods
• Briefly label the time as: “Dedicated USMLE Study Period,” “Family Obligations,” or “Research Fellowship”
• You can elaborate further in your personal statement or during interviews

Example:

USMLE Step Preparation Period
June 2023 – November 2023

• Full-time preparation for USMLE Step 1, including structured review of foundational sciences and completion of multiple NBME practice assessments.

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Research, Leadership, and Non-Clinical Experience for EM

Many Caribbean IMGs underestimate how valuable non-rotational experiences are in an EM residency CV. EM is a team-based, systems-heavy specialty; program directors look for applicants who’ve demonstrated leadership, initiative, and intellectual curiosity.

Research and Scholarly Activity

You do not need a PhD or dozens of publications to match in EM. However, any evidence of scholarly work helps:

• Case reports (especially ED cases)
• Quality improvement projects in ED/ICU/wards
• Posters at EMRA, SAEM, ACEP, or local meetings
• Retrospective chart reviews, protocol development
• Education innovations (simulation curricula, teaching modules)

How to list research:

For each project, include:

• Project title
• Role (e.g., Student Researcher)
• Institution and mentor (especially US-based EM faculty if possible)
• Dates
• Status (ongoing, submitted, accepted, published)
• 1–2 bullets on your role and impact

Example:

Student Researcher – Emergency Department Sepsis Protocol Evaluation
Lincoln University Hospital – Newark, NJ
January 2024 – Present

• Conducting retrospective chart review of patients meeting sepsis criteria to evaluate time-to-antibiotics before and after protocol implementation.
• Responsible for data collection and preliminary analysis using Excel and basic statistical methods; abstract submitted to SAEM regional conference.

If you’re at a school like SGU, Ross, AUC, Saba, etc., look into:

• Home-campus research programs
• SGU residency match and alumni connections who can link you to EM faculty
• Remote data projects (chart reviews that can be done off-site)

Leadership & Volunteering

EM program directors value initiative, resilience, and service-oriented mindsets. As a Caribbean IMG, you can especially stand out if you’ve:

• Led student organizations (EM interest group, EMRA campus chapter)
• Organized skills workshops (suturing, ultrasound)
• Coordinated community health fairs, disaster response volunteering
• Worked with underserved populations or in resource-limited settings

Example leadership entry:

President, Emergency Medicine Interest Group
Caribbean Global University School of Medicine – St. George’s, Grenada
May 2023 – April 2024

• Organized monthly EM-focused case discussions and skills sessions (airway, suturing) attended by 30–40 students.
• Coordinated virtual talks with EM faculty and residents from US programs, providing mentorship for over 50 Caribbean IMGs interested in EM.

Caribbean-specific angle:
If you participated in hurricane relief, disaster medicine, or pre-hospital care in island settings, highlight it—these are highly relevant to EM’s culture and practice.

Work Experience and Pre-Medical Clinical Roles

If you were:

• An EMT, paramedic, nurse, respiratory therapist, or ED scribe before medical school
• A medical assistant or technician in an ED or urgent care

These experiences are extremely valuable in an EM match context.

On your medical student CV, clarify:

• That the work was pre-med or pre-clinical
• Your responsibilities and skills (triage, initial assessments, communication with EM staff)
• Any leadership roles (shift lead, trainer, coordinator)

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Specific Residency CV Tips for Caribbean IMGs in EM

This section focuses on actionable residency CV tips tailored specifically to Caribbean graduates aiming for an emergency medicine residency.

1. Be Strategic with EM-Related Keywords and Skills

Reviewers skim for EM-relevant competencies. Within your clinical and extracurricular bullets, organically include terms like:

• Triage
• Resuscitation
• Time-sensitive care
• Undifferentiated patient
• Interprofessional communication
• Rapid assessment

Example transformation:

Weak:

• Saw patients in the emergency department and wrote notes.

Stronger:

• Performed rapid assessments of undifferentiated ED patients, formulated differential diagnoses, and presented concise management plans to the on-call resident and attending.

2. Quantify Your Impact Where Possible

Numbers catch attention and communicate scale and consistency.

Instead of:

• Participated in community blood pressure screenings.

Use:

• Conducted blood pressure and glucose screenings for over 300 community members across 8 monthly outreach events, with a focus on underserved populations at risk for cardiovascular disease.

3. Address the “Caribbean IMG Question” Without Apologizing

You don’t need to explain or defend your school on your CV. You do need to:

• Show strong US clinical exposure
• Demonstrate upward academic trajectory (if applicable)
• Highlight objective assessments from US EM attendings (via SLOEs, but also indirectly on CV through rigorous rotations)

If you’re from a well-known Caribbean school (e.g., SGU), and you know the SGU residency match data looks solid for EM, you can confidently:

• Emphasize competitive clerkships and US-based teaching hospitals
• Mention if your school has a strong track record in EM placements (better saved for interviews or PS, not necessarily on the CV itself)

4. Build a Clear EM Narrative Across Sections

Your CV should tell a coherent story:
“You are a Caribbean IMG who prepared deliberately for a career in EM.”

Ask yourself: does almost every major section connect to EM in some way?

• Clinical experience: EM, ICU, trauma, acute care
• Research: ED-, EMS-, or acute care-related topics where possible
• Leadership: EM interest group, disaster medicine, ultrasound club
• Volunteering: ED, EMS, crisis centers, disaster relief

You don’t need everything to be EM-branded, but a visible pattern of EM commitment is extremely helpful in a competitive EM match.

5. Optimize for US Reviewers and EM Culture

Practical tips:

• Use US terminology (emergency department, attending physician, intern, resident)
• Avoid acronyms unfamiliar to US faculty (explain on first use)
• Avoid clutter (graphics, colors, columns) – use a clean, text-based, professional layout
• Use consistent formatting: same font, bullet style, date format

Length guideline:
For a typical Caribbean IMG:

• 2–3 pages is reasonable for a residency CV
• Do not pad with irrelevant high school activities
• Do include substantial pre-med clinical work if EM-relevant

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How to Build CV for Residency in EM: Step-by-Step Plan

To integrate everything above into a workable plan, here is a step-by-step approach you can follow as a Caribbean IMG.

Step 1: Create a Master Document

Start with a comprehensive master CV including:

• Every job, rotation, leadership role, and project
• All research (even if incomplete or not yet submitted)
• All certifications (ACLS, BLS, PALS, ATLS if obtained)
• All awards, scholarships, and honors

Don’t worry about length here; this is your data source.

Step 2: Prioritize EM-Relevant Content

Go through the master document and flag:

• EM, ICU, trauma, anesthesia, urgent care, EMS-related clinical experiences
• EM-focused skills (airway, ultrasound, triage, splinting, laceration repair)
• Any leadership or volunteer work tied to acute or emergency care

These will form the backbone of your EM-focused residency CV.

Step 3: Edit Bullets for Impact

For each entry:

1. Start bullets with strong action verbs: “Led,” “Developed,” “Coordinated,” “Managed,” “Performed,” “Collaborated,” “Implemented.”
2. Include specificity: number of patients, events, participants, weeks, or outcomes.
3. Tie the skill back to EM whenever appropriate (without forced repetition).

Step 4: Remove or Condense Low-Value Details

You don’t need:

• High school achievements (unless extremely exceptional and relevant)
• Very short-term hobbies without clear impact
• Redundant activities with essentially the same description

Focus the limited space on what will matter today to EM residency programs.

Step 5: Align with ERAS and Proofread Rigorously

Once your PDF CV is ready:

• Ensure dates, titles, and descriptions match exactly with what you input into ERAS
• Have at least one US-based mentor or resident review your CV, ideally someone familiar with EM applications
• Watch for spelling errors, inconsistent formatting, and unclear abbreviations

Consider a final check from:

• Your school’s Office of Career Guidance or Dean’s office
• Alumni from your school who successfully matched into EM
• Resident mentors through EMRA or specialty-specific mentoring programs

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FAQs: CV Building for Caribbean IMGs in Emergency Medicine

1. How important is research on a CV for an EM match as a Caribbean IMG?

Research is helpful but not mandatory for EM. Many successful EM applicants, including Caribbean IMGs, match with minimal traditional research but strong clinical performance and EM commitment. However, because you’re coming from a Caribbean medical school, any research—especially EM-focused or QI—can help offset concerns about academic rigor and demonstrate that you can contribute to scholarly work.

Aim for at least one of the following:

• A case report or poster (ideally presented at a meeting)
• Participation in a QI project in an ED or ICU
• Any role in data collection/analysis for an EM-related study

List these clearly on your CV with your exact role.

2. Should I put USMLE scores on my residency CV?

For ERAS, your scores are entered separately. On a formal PDF CV that you send for research, away rotations, or networking:

• Including Step 1/2 scores can be helpful if they are solid or above average for EM
• If your scores are weaker, it’s acceptable to leave them off the CV and let ERAS speak for itself

If you do list scores, make sure they are 100% accurate and up to date.

3. How can I make my Caribbean medical school background an asset on my CV?

You can’t change where you trained, but you can frame it positively:

• Emphasize diverse and resource-limited clinical exposure
• Highlight resilience, adaptability, and cross-cultural communication
• Show strong US clinical rotations and evaluations that bridge any perceived gap in training

You don’t need a separate section about this; instead, let it come through in:

• Clinical rotation descriptions (e.g., high patient volume, limited resources)
• Volunteer and disaster response experiences
• Leadership in helping other Caribbean peers navigate the path to US residency

4. How early should I start building my CV for an EM residency?

Ideally, start your medical student CV in your first or second year of school:

• Y1–2: Track leadership roles, volunteering, early research
• Y3: Add core rotations and start targeting EM electives, EMS exposure, and QI projects
• Y4: Refine, reorganize toward EM, and align with your ERAS application

For Caribbean IMGs, early planning is especially valuable because:

• Securing strong US-based EM rotations and SLOEs requires advance scheduling
• Building a coherent EM narrative takes time and repetition, not last-minute additions

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By approaching your residency CV intentionally—highlighting EM commitment, US clinical readiness, and consistent professionalism—you can significantly strengthen your chances at an emergency medicine residency position, even in a competitive EM match and even as a Caribbean IMG. Your CV is more than a list of activities; it is your curated story of why you are ready to thrive in one of the most demanding and rewarding specialties in medicine.