Please, help!

SDN Members don't see this ad. (About Ads)

Here's the deal. I am a first year medical student on the verge of failing Biochemistry. I have never failed a class in my life, and it feels horrible knowing that it might happen to me. Last semester I passed Hisotology, Anatomy, and Embryology with flying colors. In fact, I exempted all three classes. I can't understand why Biochemistry is giving me such a hard time! I feel extremely depressed and saddened. I worry what everyone will think of me, especially because I have a cousin attending the same medical school, although in a more advanced semester, and he is currently the valedictorian of his generation. I feel like everyone is expecting me to be just as great as he is since we share our last name. I really could use some advice, some motivational words, anything would be appreciated. I'm really worried that if I do happen to fail Biochemistry, it will come back and haunt me later in my academic and professional career. So I repeat, can someone please help me out?

I am so sorry no one responded to you! It sounds like you are having a really crappy time. Hopefully you were able to get yourself into a better place/state of mind but either way. You can do this! I know all the feelings you bring up here all too well! And I think most medical students do, though most schools (or at least in my experiences) have a culture where admitting your imperfections or struggles are frowned upon. Even if everyone is feeling bad. #1: Forget what other people will think! This education of yours is NOT about them, it's about you getting the education you need, deserve and are paying very high prices for, to become an awesome doctor! I know that ignoring your pride and what others think is very hard, and the only reason I give it as advice is because I am very bad at it. But if you can try and ignore that for the time being and focus on yourself. You'll be much better off. #2: Feeling really bummed about not doing well and living up to the potential you know you can is a totally normal and valid reaction. BUT, as med students, we often are under immense pressure and stress and often judge ourselves harshly for not being "as good" as we think we should be at all times. Try to be nice to yourself! And think about going to the school therapist or psychiatrist. Many people in medical school have managed many things in there lives but the constant stress brings up a much higher vulnerability to clinical depression, and if you don't deal with that now, things will just get harder.

If you fail Biochemistry, it won't be the end of the world! The only thing you can do now is try the best you can. If it's not good enough, you will learn from it. And yeah, it might be a mark on your record, but if you use the experience (and hopefully will get a break to actually process this) to learn from it and figure out what about biochem went wrong it will probably be a blessing in disguise that it wasn't farther down the road with a class that people will be more interested in looking for a good grade in. If you have connected with a professor (in Biochem or not) and could sit with them for an hour or two and talk about what you think the problem was they could probably point out how you can change up your studying habits to make them more flexible. I struggled my first year, but never ended up failing a class, so I didn't have as much of an incentive to make any changes. I just thought 2nd year was supposed to be better so it will be. But once I came back for the 2nd year, and hadn't changed my study habits or spent time figuring out why certain things were so hard for me things kind of fell apart. It's good you are getting this out of the way now! It will make you a better medical student in the long run, and a better doctor! Good doctors can't have everything easy. =) Just my humble opinion I suppose.

well me too has gone through such a miserable conditions but the difference is i had to remediate in anatomy ..and interestingly me too has a relative in my class and that freak without any delay just anounced my failure in the whole family.. so creepy plus crappy
IMO u just wait for the result since u r not sure what'd happen..so dont panic ur self in advance.. if it does happen for instance then keep the following things in mind.
1..its commen in medical school.even the brightest students face such situations..(i hav seen many in my school)
2.. failing a subject never means that u r less than ur mates in any respect.
3..damn care what others think about you (need a bit of practice)..

If you fail it, you can generally remediate it in most medical schools--it's not the end of the world. I have two friends who both failed Anatomy and they made up for it by doing phenomenally in their other classes (High Pass or higher in them) and taking Anatomy in the summer, finishing it up, and doing better. Beyond that, I would spend some time during your summer reading up some biochemistry on the side so that when you enter second year (I'm assuming you're an MS1) you don't feel like crap when stuff comes up.

Bottom line, it happens. Move on. It's not the end of the world.