What Qualifications Would I Need to Study Medicine in America?
I’m in the UK and I’ve always wanted to move to the USA when I’m older, and I’ve always wanted to be a surgeon so I’m guessing it’d be easier to get qualified over in the US as a foreign exchange student so I can later and work there and get a green card.
I know that I’ll need A Levels which are the qualifications that would get me to further education in the UK – however would I need to get SAT tested to gain a score for them, and if so, where would I do this testing?
Also, what are the requirements for being able to do a residency over there? DO I need to have citizenship?
Alternatively, I’ve heard that green cards are sometimes offered to foreign medical graduates. Would I still be able to get a job in medicine, and later further specialise (I’m most interested in plastic surgery) with a foreign qualification?
I’m 16 right now so I have time to plan all this, but I want to start understanding exactly what I need to do 
Any help is appreciated, thanks.
Well first of all to get into medical school you have to have a Bachelors degree, usually in Biology and/or Chemistry (but they like to see you follow your goals, so a minor in something unique like music will really set you apart). In America it is actually very difficult to get into medical school, most people don’t. As stated above this is a grad degree, so you will get your Bachelors and take the MCAT. But you also have to have undergraduate research and a huge number of volunteer hours from a medical facility like a hospital.
So your A-levels are fine if you are coming here to get your Bachelors (but that will cost you an arm and a leg, and medical school is already going to cost you something like 30,000 pounds per year in tuition alone, not including the 7,000 pounds for housing and food, more if you live in a large city. So I advise you to complete your Bachelors degree and all of your volunteer work in the UK, then take the MCAT and apply to schools here for your medical degree. But if you are dead set on coming here for your Bachelors you will need either the SAT or ACT (whichever that school requires).
No, you do not need to be a citizen to do your residency, we actually have a good number of foreign medical students, so they will work with you, they may keep you on student status or give you a green card. Also, as above stated, an exchange student means that you are hear for 1-2 semesters then you go home and transfer your credits back, in America you cannot do medical as an exchange student, so you will have to be here for your entire degree. You can work here as long as you can find a job, which since the passing of our new health care boll should not be hard for you at that time.
You’d need a first degree. Medicine in the US is not an undergraduate degree like it is in the UK. You can’t apply for it with just A levels.
You’d need to be _very_ careful trying to go to the US for medicine with a UK first degree, because we simply don’t have the concept of "pre-med" – all our wannabe doctors are already doing "med"
You might be better off going at 18 if you want to do a US medical degree. I hope you have a good bank balance, because it will be _frighteningly_ expensive.
You seem to be a bit confused. You can’t get qualified in the US as a foreign exchange student. If you’re an exchange student, your degree is awarded by your home university, not the one you do an exchange with.
A UK medical degree should allow you to work in the US. (With some hoops to jump through. But it would not be a barrier.)