Suspension Crisis

[bosh]

Has anyone else on this forum been suspended because of subpar academic performance during their first year of medical school? (Please redirect if in the wrong place, just don’t know where to post this.)

spark notes:

Pre 2016:

12-17 homeschooled, 17 private school, 17 community college honors, 18-20 state school (music and psychology initially, decided to graduate with sociology.) 21-23 MS Physiology (with a medical leave)

Post 2016: finished MS online, worked as an IFT EMT, spent a year building a student EMS unit at my undergraduate that was shuttered by dirty deal between local city FD and my university (I was the fourth attempt in 3 years to start a student EMS club.) Started online MA in Social Entrepreneurship and Enterprise (fancy MBA) got halfway through and decided not my cup of tea (a lot of bull**** social justice commentary that had nothing to do with running a business, tuition $$$) Worked as a barista and a photographer, too.

COVID: quit EMT job, hunkered down at parents house, took MCAT twice (through COVID cancellations) applied to over 40 schools (MD and DO) Applied to maybe a hundred medical and research jobs in the interim- got an interview at VICE for research, too. Becomes moderator on medical discord with over 10k students on board, becomes community leader. I’m FIRED UP. I’m ready.

Post 2021:

moved across country week before school, settles into apt. and starts medical school. 4 week blocks with MC tests (80 questions by 5 teachers, midterm and final - heavyweight of our grade count) P/F I’m nailing 65, 68, 53… grades are going down, I stop going to gym. I adopt Anki. I stay at library until midnight, get back up at 5am to study until 730am and go to school.

I am killing it it in-class quizzes at this point (Week 10.) I get called into committee and informed I failed block 1 by 5%. My question about exam retake is ignored. Remediation over summer is recommended. I comply and study harder. block 2, same thing. I get accommodations and take my exams in the testing center. My inability to test-take still just destroys me. I do exam reviews and find all my wrong answers were last minute panic-changes. Exams I thought were 85s end up being mid 60s. Schools ARC officer give me a blank excel sheet and says “make a schedule.” (This is super stupid if you think about it, says I must not be studying hard enough.) They assign me a ‘peer tutor-‘ an OMSII who is also prepping for exams; our schedules don’t align. School informs me that they have to decide whether or not I can remediate two courses over summer or repeat the year (10/ 8) says I’ll hear back within four days. (This is the beginning of block 3.) Silence for weeks. I’ve already taken midterm and pre-final visual anatomy test. Final is in two days. It’s 10/26 and they hand me a letter telling me I’m suspended, not even by the dean but some other lackey who apologies for the more than two week delay. Letter is obviously written by attorney who claims I did not utilize the school’s ‘aggressive interventions‘ to help me. I’m in tears at this point because I’m due to take block three final in 48 hours and I have a passing grade. I ask three different officials if it’s worth taking, including professor. No clear answer; “If you want!” (People, I’m not taking this for fun! Will the grade count??)

Thursday and Friday I stay home. I get an email asking why I didn’t take the final. I’ve already had two meetings confirming I‘m leaving and returning next year. At this point I feel completely abandoned by a school whose right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. My cohort takes me out for lunch. We all hug each other and they tell me they’ll support me when I return next year. I’m happy.

Am I a fool to return to bat again next year? Should I consider other careers? The more I consider medicine and repeating this year the more anguish I feel but I feel complete apathy to any and all careers now. I want to curl into a ball and play videogames. I have many MD and PhD mentors telling me it’s ok and to keep it up. I am an extremely talented photographer and I could easily go to film school or start working on coding like all the geeks… but I don’t know what my heart‘s telling me to do anymore. I feel empty and confused.

Has anyone returned after floundering? If you’re reading this, why did you go back? I was told by dean, “you’re not dumb, we know you can do this.” However, *I feel dumb.*

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Don't give up. My friend failed first year twice. He's emergency medicine now. I would trust my health to him. Early failures are not a reflection of subpar capacity. They are a reflection of needing to modify your strategy to improve. You can choose to grow from this or to give up. It's up to you

 

[deleted1100659]

Has anyone else on this forum been suspended because of subpar academic performance during their first year of medical school? (Please redirect if in the wrong place, just don’t know where to post this.)

spark notes:

Pre 2016:

12-17 homeschooled, 17 private school, 17 community college honors, 18-20 state school (music and psychology initially, decided to graduate with sociology.) 21-23 MS Physiology (with a medical leave)

Post 2016: finished MS online, worked as an IFT EMT, spent a year building a student EMS unit at my undergraduate that was shuttered by dirty deal between local city FD and my university (I was the fourth attempt in 3 years to start a student EMS club.) Started online MA in Social Entrepreneurship and Enterprise (fancy MBA) got halfway through and decided not my cup of tea (a lot of bull**** social justice commentary that had nothing to do with running a business, tuition $$$) Worked as a barista and a photographer, too.

COVID: quit EMT job, hunkered down at parents house, took MCAT twice (through COVID cancellations) applied to over 40 schools (MD and DO) Applied to maybe a hundred medical and research jobs in the interim- got an interview at VICE for research, too. Becomes moderator on medical discord with over 10k students on board, becomes community leader. I’m FIRED UP. I’m ready.

Post 2021:

moved across country week before school, settles into apt. and starts medical school. 4 week blocks with MC tests (80 questions by 5 teachers, midterm and final - heavyweight of our grade count) P/F I’m nailing 65, 68, 53… grades are going down, I stop going to gym. I adopt Anki. I stay at library until midnight, get back up at 5am to study until 730am and go to school.

I am killing it it in-class quizzes at this point (Week 10.) I get called into committee and informed I failed block 1 by 5%. My question about exam retake is ignored. Remediation over summer is recommended. I comply and study harder. block 2, same thing. I get accommodations and take my exams in the testing center. My inability to test-take still just destroys me. I do exam reviews and find all my wrong answers were last minute panic-changes. Exams I thought were 85s end up being mid 60s. Schools ARC officer give me a blank excel sheet and says “make a schedule.” (This is super stupid if you think about it, says I must not be studying hard enough.) They assign me a ‘peer tutor-‘ an OMSII who is also prepping for exams; our schedules don’t align. School informs me that they have to decide whether or not I can remediate two courses over summer or repeat the year (10/ 8) says I’ll hear back within four days. (This is the beginning of block 3.) Silence for weeks. I’ve already taken midterm and pre-final visual anatomy test. Final is in two days. It’s 10/26 and they hand me a letter telling me I’m suspended, not even by the dean but some other lackey who apologies for the more than two week delay. Letter is obviously written by attorney who claims I did not utilize the school’s ‘aggressive interventions‘ to help me. I’m in tears at this point because I’m due to take block three final in 48 hours and I have a passing grade. I ask three different officials if it’s worth taking, including professor. No clear answer; “If you want!” (People, I’m not taking this for fun! Will the grade count??)

Thursday and Friday I stay home. I get an email asking why I didn’t take the final. I’ve already had two meetings confirming I‘m leaving and returning next year. At this point I feel completely abandoned by a school whose right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. My cohort takes me out for lunch. We all hug each other and they tell me they’ll support me when I return next year. I’m happy.

Am I a fool to return to bat again next year? Should I consider other careers? The more I consider medicine and repeating this year the more anguish I feel but I feel complete apathy to any and all careers now. I want to curl into a ball and play videogames. I have many MD and PhD mentors telling me it’s ok and to keep it up. I am an extremely talented photographer and I could easily go to film school or start working on coding like all the geeks… but I don’t know what my heart‘s telling me to do anymore. I feel empty and confused.

Has anyone returned after floundering? If you’re reading this, why did you go back? I was told by dean, “you’re not dumb, we know you can do this.” However, *I feel dumb.*

First, I want to say to you that I am sorry you're going through this stress as it is probably incredibly hard to deal with. To preface, I went through the same thing my first semester of medical school. I started out in the bottom 5 out of 150 and barely made it through the first semester. Finished medical school in the top half and my step 1 score being above average, step 2 being in the 88 percentile. I disclose this information so you can understand that I have been in your shoes and what im about to say comes from my own experience.

I don't think you're dumb, but I think you are looking to blame everything around you and perhaps in a bit of denial. Some people are better at standardized tests, but chances are if you arent passing there is most certainly a knowledge gap.

Im going to give you a magic formula for success in life. Success= time X efficiency^2. What do i mean by that? When you increase one variable, you will have more success. However, increasing efficiency will have the largest impact. If you're putting in loads of time then you have a deficit in efficiency and that time isn't being utilized in the right way. You may be studying and memorizing things, but perhaps you are not fully understanding hence why you're putting in so much time for so little reward. I had a similiar issue my first semester. I put in 12+ hours a day but i realized I only memorized and didnt understand, hence why it took so long. I forced myself (despite this being painful) to make an outline of EVERY lecture, breaking down the material, deciphering what was actually relevant/important, what they could test you on, etc. I would run through my outlines constantly, and then once I had a good overview, I would even further breakdown my outline, hammering out more specifics. I had to break things down in a way that made sense in my brain.

To succeed in this field, you need to look at yourself in a very deep way. Is there a burning desire? How angry are you that you're failing? Do you want this? If you are ambivalent, and you aren't willing to go all in, save yourself the heartbreak now, and switch to another field before you get further along and something else happens.

When I was at the bottom, I knew in my heart, that I would do anything it took to dig myself out of the hole (aside from something unethical). I will never forget that meeting with the administration where they told me "shape up, or ship out". I remember one even told me "honestly, most people at the bottom tend to stay in the bottom. You're struggling now and likely will continue to struggle". I made him eat his words. I remember even a simulated patient encounter the person in charge told me, after a measly bad simulated patient encounter I was nervous on, "well if you struggle on this you will likely struggle on step 2 due to your lack of clinical knowledge". Again, made him eat his words, and I crushed step 2.

I am now an attending, working in an outpatient practice. My point with this is, the answer to your question lies within, and comes down to how bad you want this, and what you're wiling to do to get it.

 

[Goro]

I have tons of students who have had to retake a year and came back stronger after finishing their Loa.

Out of curiosity, is this a brand-new School?

To make your original post easier to read for other SDNers, could you delete your biography up until the start of medical school? The information there does not help, and weeding through the wall of text is a bit difficult.

Will write more later.

 

[Goro]

If the problem is you're changing answers at the last minute due to your lack of confidence, do you have the self-control to be able to stop doing this? It's been shown that in general your first answer choice is the correct one, so you have to have some faith in yourself and go with that. Can you do this?

 

[TragicalDrFaust]

I barely passed OMS-1 but revamped my study strategy and am doing very well OMS-2. Anki doesn’t work for everyone. I had the same problem where I was spending so many hours I was afraid of wasting time so didn’t take time understand. Big mistake.

Failing OMS-1 doesn’t reflect your intellectual capacity. Rather it has to do with your ability to adjust to the volume of material and find a study strategy that works for you. Meet with a study advisor and find a tutor.

 

[bosh]

I have tons of students who have had to retake a year and came back stronger after finishing their Loa.

Out of curiosity, is this a brand-new School?

To make your original post easier to read for other SDNers, could you delete your biography up until the start of medical school? The information there does not help, and weeding through the wall of text is a bit difficult.

Will write more later.

may or may not be CHSU

 

[Damson]

@Goro what is your opinion on for-profit universities?

 

[Goro]

@Goro what is your opinion on for-profit universities?

They are a pox on medical education.

 

[ortnakas]

If the problem is you're changing answers at the last minute due to your lack of confidence, do you have the self-control to be able to stop doing this? It's been shown that in general your first answer choice is the correct one, so you have to have some faith in yourself and go with that. Can you do this?

Take this advice. I have come up with a system where I review my answers once but only make a change if on re-read I am 100% sure I missed something on the first pass and know I need to change it. If I wasn’t sure on the first pass, my instinct skills/guess won’t have gotten any better since then.