Serving as a family medicine physician with a sports medicine specialty, and as a successful entrepreneur, Cameroonian-American Dr. George Tabi proves that IMGs can do it all!
Born and raised in New York City to Cameroonian parents, Dr. Tabi grew up seeing the challenges that the people in his area faced. After his father moved back to Cameroon because of work, he witnessed his mother working hard to support their family which eventually led her to become a nurse.
While he was always encouraged to become a doctor, Dr. Tabi had a keen interest in sports which led to his obtaining a basketball scholarship to attend Reinhardt University. After sustaining a leg injury, Dr. Tabi’s focus pivoted into medicine and eventually to Poland where he enrolled in a six year medical program.
He noted that while there were drawbacks to studying outside of the US, the training he received in Europe was highly beneficial, especially due to the fact that his professors were highly passionate  practicing physicians with lots of clinical experience. Additionally, the assessment methods used there were sometimes oral-based and overall very different from the methods he was used to in the US. As a result, during residency, his perspective and approach to issues faced within the medical field differed significantly from that of his US-trained colleagues.
In the final year of his medical program, Dr. Tabi started applying for US residencies all over the country and scored 15 interviews. However, he only ended up attending 3 of them because the third offered him a pre-match residency position on the spot!
When asked how he did it, he admitted that he did not go into that interview with the best of mindsets at first, but pulled it together keeping the following tips in mind:

Go into every interview like it’s your last
Always exude positive energy
Be honest and authentic, don’t over exaggerate who you are
Be punctual, serious and respectful

Some key takeaways and inspirational nuggets that Dr. Tabi leaves us with are:

Fall in love with being wrong while you have the luxury of not being held accountable: don’t be afraid to appear to not be the smartest in the class, students are meant to learn, not to know it all.
Collaborate and grow with your classmates instead of only debating and competing: the people who are your colleagues now will be your fellow doctors later. We do better together!
Do not put yourself in a box and always be true to who you are. IMGs can be successful doctors and entrepreneurs or whatever they strive to be.


You can get in touch with Dr. Tabi on his Instagram @AskTabs and on his website asktabswellness.com.
Listen to the full podcast episode here:
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-img-roadmap/id1490731292
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/45NNJ7ewtqynqyssbwm1xz
Google Podcasts:https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9mOGMzY2EwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz
Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1490731292/the-img-roadmap-podcast
RadioPublic: https://radiopublic.com/the-img-roadmap-GE0MMg



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