Way 
A
Medicine &
Medicine &
dentistry
The most competitive entry in this field by a wide margin, with international places restricted in several publicly funded systems.
Field 03
Healthcare
Healthcare
& Wellbeing
The most regulated field on this site. Decide where you intend to practise before you decide anything else.
What sits inside
Much wider than medicine.
Most students arrive holding one degree in mind. Three of these four groups are considerably more open to international applicants than the one everybody names first.
B
Nursing &
Nursing &
allied health
Midwifery, pharmacy, physiotherapy, radiography, paramedic science, speech therapy — degree-level professions with their own registration routes.
C
Psychology &
Psychology &
mental health
The undergraduate degree and the clinical qualification are separated by years of further training, which surprises almost everyone.
D
Population &
Population &
system health
Public health, epidemiology, health policy, health economics, biomedical science, health data. Real work, much less gated, and not clinical practice by another name.
The one rule
A degree is not a licence.
Every clinical profession is licensed nationally, by a national regulator. Where you qualify decides where you can register.
What you study
One decision comes before all the others.
Decide where you intend to practise before you decide where to study. A medical degree earned in one country does not automatically permit practice in another.
Biology and chemistry are the usual foundation, from CBSE, ICSE, a state board, IB or Cambridge. Medicine is an undergraduate degree in the UK, Australia and much of Europe, and postgraduate in the US and Canada.
Allied health recognition between English-speaking systems is generally more workable than medicine.
The honest part
Four things that catch people out.
This field carries the heaviest family expectation of the four. That makes accurate information more useful than encouragement.
Qualifying abroad does not transfer home
Practising in India after a foreign medical degree runs through the Indian regulator, with conditions at entry as well as on return. Establish that route before you choose the degree.
Clinical places for international students are limited
Several publicly funded systems reserve most clinical training places for domestic students, because the training is subsidised and tied to workforce planning. Money does not solve this.
Placements are the bottleneck
A course's capacity is set by how many supervised clinical placements it can secure, not by how many seats the lecture theatre holds. That is why numbers stay small.
The rules can change while you study
A recognition route that works for this year's intake may not hold in five years. Plan on that basis, and treat anyone promising a guaranteed outcome as a warning sign.
Choosing a destination
The calculation differs by profession.
For medicine, most of these are hard. For nursing, allied health and public health, the same four countries look quite different.
United Kingdom
Undergraduate entry to medicine and dentistry, with very limited international places. Much more open for nursing, allied health and public health.
Study in the UKAustralia
Both medical routes exist depending on the university, so read the programme rather than the country. Established allied health pathways.
Study in AustraliaNew Zealand
A smaller system throughout, with smaller cohorts and fewer placements. Nursing and allied health are more realistic than medicine here.
Study in New ZealandCanada
Medicine is effectively closed to most international applicants at undergraduate level. Strong options in nursing, public health and the health sciences.
Study in Canada
Common questions
Three worth answering directly.
These three come up in the same words almost every time, and the honest answer to each is shorter than the story people have usually been told.
Q1
Can I practise in India with a medical degree from abroad?
Not automatically. Practising in India after a foreign medical degree runs through the Indian regulator, and there are conditions attached both at the point of entry and on return. Those conditions have changed more than once in recent years, so check the current position for your intake rather than relying on what applied to someone a few years ago.
Q2
Is a psychology degree enough to become a therapist?
No. An undergraduate psychology degree is not a clinical qualification in any country. Practising clinically requires postgraduate training and registration with the relevant professional body, and in India that runs through a separate regulator again.
Q3
What are the realistic options if I cannot get a place in medicine?
Nursing, midwifery, pharmacy, physiotherapy, radiography and the other allied health professions are degree-level careers with their own registration routes, and they are considerably more open to international students. Public health, health policy and health data are open too, though they do not lead to clinical practice.
We will tell you when a plan is unrealistic.
In this field that is the most useful thing we can do. Establish the recognition route first, build a shortlist that is compatible with it, and only then worry about the application itself.
The other three fields