- Joined
- Aug 22, 2008
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Hello everyone,
I'm sorry in advance for this being so long but here goes...
I am one of those unfortunate people who managed to fail out of medical school and I am curious as to what people think of my situation/plan of action to be reaccepted.
I had decent stats applying (3.6 GPA (3.4 sci), 26-R MCATs and 3 summers of research internships, held a part time job at a hospital lots of shadowing etc) and was accepted into what I consider to be a prestigious D.O. program (it shall be nameless for this post) early in 2008 and everything seemed to be falling into place. Fast forward to the end of the intro system. I had not taken anatomy and physiology during undergrad and found it extremely difficult. Further, I was very disturbed (quite unexpectedly) by working with cadavers. Passing is of course 70 and due to my dismal anatomy average of 47 I failed the intro course with a 62. At the school I was at you could remediate one system but the second one in a year is damning. The second system i finished with a soul-crushing 69, again due to the darn anatomy grades. I repealed my dismissal on the grounds that it was clearly anatomy that was killing my averages and that I could take steps in the interm year to work on my easily identifiable weakness and start over the following year.
In my appeal I had outlined several things that I was going to do to eliminate my weakness, along with taking full responsibility for everything that had happened as my own fault for not being prepared enough, and not acclimating myself to dissection before the first day of gross lab.
1. take undergrad A+P 1+2 w/labs
2. continue to expose myself to dissection labs whether by attending autopsies or being allowed to continue studying in the schools gross lab
3. essentially do little else but study anatomy until August 2009
The appeal board didn't buy it (or any of the other stories the 6 others that were dismissed after the first 2 systems had). I was quite depressed by this, I feel like the appeal process at the school I was at was nothing more than a formality but that's another matter.
So I proceeded to write letters to literally all the other COM's admissions offices asking what they thought of my situation and whether or not I could be considered. Roughly half the COM's have a policy in stone that they do not accept previously dismissed D.O. students. I wrote letters to the deans of those schools with one positive outcome: special permission to apply to LECOM's campuses, but not until 2009-2010 cycle. 80% of the other half wanted me to wait another year before applying, and a few would consider my 2009 application. So I applied to the few schools that would review my application immediately after my dismissal and was waitlisted at 2/3 of them based on how late I applied (I was in the last interview group due to a lag in getting another DO letter...) and they wanted to see how I did on my AnP coursework.
That brings us to today. I have been working in public health research for the passed 4.5 months and have gotten A's in both the AnP lectures and Labs. In order to stay sharp, I am the TA for the professor I had last spring and summer I for AnP 1 and 2 and assist with (not just observe) autopsies at a hospital on about a monthly basis. I also retook the MCAT last Saturday to try to show continued determination and I bought this great Anatomy lab program for the computer called Anatomy and Physiology Revealed 2.0. (Not to give them a plug or anything but it's a great cadaver dissection simulation and a wonderful way to study way better than any atlas) and I have applications in at 10 D.O. schools pending verification (submitted 8/13/09, would have submitted earlier but I was waiting for my AnP II Grade). My premed committee at my undergrad institution has written me a new recommendation and I have a couple new recs on file from people I work for both MD and DO. I have also applied to SGU and Ross just in case, but I would still rather be a DO.
So my questions are:
1. What do you think of this plan of action (most of which is complete at this point)? Is there anything you think I should be doing that I'm not doing?
2. Do you think I'm insane for trying? I have read only 2 accounts of this sort of thing on SDN but I'm sure there are more. Most of us that get dismissed are just embarrassed to talk about it I think...especially since from my school alone after the first 3 months there were already 7 people dismissed due to academic problems alone.
Go nuts, I can take it. At this point I can take anything.
I'm sorry in advance for this being so long but here goes...
I am one of those unfortunate people who managed to fail out of medical school and I am curious as to what people think of my situation/plan of action to be reaccepted.
I had decent stats applying (3.6 GPA (3.4 sci), 26-R MCATs and 3 summers of research internships, held a part time job at a hospital lots of shadowing etc) and was accepted into what I consider to be a prestigious D.O. program (it shall be nameless for this post) early in 2008 and everything seemed to be falling into place. Fast forward to the end of the intro system. I had not taken anatomy and physiology during undergrad and found it extremely difficult. Further, I was very disturbed (quite unexpectedly) by working with cadavers. Passing is of course 70 and due to my dismal anatomy average of 47 I failed the intro course with a 62. At the school I was at you could remediate one system but the second one in a year is damning. The second system i finished with a soul-crushing 69, again due to the darn anatomy grades. I repealed my dismissal on the grounds that it was clearly anatomy that was killing my averages and that I could take steps in the interm year to work on my easily identifiable weakness and start over the following year.
In my appeal I had outlined several things that I was going to do to eliminate my weakness, along with taking full responsibility for everything that had happened as my own fault for not being prepared enough, and not acclimating myself to dissection before the first day of gross lab.
1. take undergrad A+P 1+2 w/labs
2. continue to expose myself to dissection labs whether by attending autopsies or being allowed to continue studying in the schools gross lab
3. essentially do little else but study anatomy until August 2009
The appeal board didn't buy it (or any of the other stories the 6 others that were dismissed after the first 2 systems had). I was quite depressed by this, I feel like the appeal process at the school I was at was nothing more than a formality but that's another matter.
So I proceeded to write letters to literally all the other COM's admissions offices asking what they thought of my situation and whether or not I could be considered. Roughly half the COM's have a policy in stone that they do not accept previously dismissed D.O. students. I wrote letters to the deans of those schools with one positive outcome: special permission to apply to LECOM's campuses, but not until 2009-2010 cycle. 80% of the other half wanted me to wait another year before applying, and a few would consider my 2009 application. So I applied to the few schools that would review my application immediately after my dismissal and was waitlisted at 2/3 of them based on how late I applied (I was in the last interview group due to a lag in getting another DO letter...) and they wanted to see how I did on my AnP coursework.
That brings us to today. I have been working in public health research for the passed 4.5 months and have gotten A's in both the AnP lectures and Labs. In order to stay sharp, I am the TA for the professor I had last spring and summer I for AnP 1 and 2 and assist with (not just observe) autopsies at a hospital on about a monthly basis. I also retook the MCAT last Saturday to try to show continued determination and I bought this great Anatomy lab program for the computer called Anatomy and Physiology Revealed 2.0. (Not to give them a plug or anything but it's a great cadaver dissection simulation and a wonderful way to study way better than any atlas) and I have applications in at 10 D.O. schools pending verification (submitted 8/13/09, would have submitted earlier but I was waiting for my AnP II Grade). My premed committee at my undergrad institution has written me a new recommendation and I have a couple new recs on file from people I work for both MD and DO. I have also applied to SGU and Ross just in case, but I would still rather be a DO.
So my questions are:
1. What do you think of this plan of action (most of which is complete at this point)? Is there anything you think I should be doing that I'm not doing?
2. Do you think I'm insane for trying? I have read only 2 accounts of this sort of thing on SDN but I'm sure there are more. Most of us that get dismissed are just embarrassed to talk about it I think...especially since from my school alone after the first 3 months there were already 7 people dismissed due to academic problems alone.
Go nuts, I can take it. At this point I can take anything.