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War of Arts said:
If it were a failure again, I could need to repeat the entire year again.
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I'm confused. Are you repeating the year already? Are we talking MS 1? Is this your first or second time as an MS1? What is the subject of the exam? We might be able to help you with bigger picture stuff if you can give us more detail. There is a way to prepare for the exam. But you have to learn the subject matter backwards and forwards, to the point that you can teach it. I'm wondering if you're just trying to memorize rather than learning the concepts.
 
War of Arts said:
No, I am an M2 now in the spring semester. This was the very first block of the fall semester of M2. The block was basic pharm, path/pharm/clinical med of derm, hematology, oncology, infectious diseases. The original block had three-part, the first part was pharm exclusively, the second part was hematology and some oncology, third was oncology, infectious diseases, and derm. The first part of the original block was open-book. The remediation exam I recently took was made of these three parts and closed book.

Unfortunately, what matters for our exam is all about memorization, especially for pharm content. There were many questions about tiny details of drugs (combinations or XY drugs, or YZ drugs, sort of things like this), even like the correct spelling of a receptor. I am pretty bad at memorizing things, but for this block I could say is all about memorization not too much about understanding the concepts. Otherwise, I have no problems with other blocks/courses. And what matters now was I actually felt OK when I took the remediation exam. But they did not disclose what questions I got wrong or correct nor I could do an exam review. So if I have to go through this again, how can I do it? 🙁
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I mean, schools should always provide the exam for you to look at. Your school sucks for not doing that. Drugs are hard. I would look for mnemonics and remembers that the most common or weird or dangerous drugs are the ones likely to be tested. Learn the concept, then zero in on the most common offenders. For example, when learning serotonin syndrome, there are only a handful of drug combos most likely to be tested for that concept. MAOis, SSRIs and other psych meds are most likely to be involved in an MS2 exam on that concept. Outside of psych meds, what else? Well, linezolid or triptans, among others. Learn the concept of serotonin syndrome and most common/dangerous offenders and what to do about it.

Learn about immunosuppresants and the most common thing that can happen with each, antibiotics and weird stuff (like if you give amoxicillin to someone and they develop a rash, they may have mono), the interaction between metronidazole and alcohol, learn about SJS and most common offenders. Your lecturers must have gone over all of this. Know it cold.

That should answer a lot of questions. For the receptors, make a chart and find the most common ones or the ones that repeatedly come up in lectures. Look at some Youtube videos on this topic and you'll find a lot that will break it down for you.

Do you have Pathoma? It helped me A LOT when I was in med school and struggling with heme/onc and derm. Pathoma helps you break it down and really understand the pathophysiology of the conditions which can help you answer the questions on the test. Whatever isn't covered in Pathoma, draw it out in the same way and group it in its appropriate place. Once you understand it, it helps you answer the questions that you didn't memorize or can't remember.
 
War of Arts said:
Current M2, I failed one course last semester, and I had to take the remediation exam. I was offered to use the wintertime to study for a remediation exam for that course, but it turned out I scored even worse than the first time (Actually the worst-ever score I have ever scored in med school). The exam was much more difficult and longer (one-third of the initial exam taken during the semester was opened notes, but it was closed notes for remediation). The school offered no help except giving me the course objectives that would be tested. These objectives helped nothing but merely just like you have to go through almost every material in a much shorter amount of time. Other than that, nobody helped or gave any useful resources; they didn't even allow me to see what questions I got wrong after the remediation exam.

I am so desperate now and do not know what I am supposed to do. I have no problems with the rest of the classes, being able to score close to the class average, but I got only 60% on the first try and even lower for remediation. Now, I am given a second chance to retake the remediation exam during the summer with a different set of questions but the same difficulty. Honestly, I don't see how I can manage to pass if I have to go through the same process again. If it were a failure again, I could need to repeat the entire year again. Or even if I passed, it would eat up a lot of my board preparation time. I just do not have too much motivation to study at this point, feel it is a waste of time because no matter how well I do now, I would have to repeat everything all over again. I have to talk to the directors who are in charge of this, but they are just too busy I will need to wait until next week to have a meeting. Just wanted to come here ask for some serious advices folks thank you so much.
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Very sorry to hear of the fix that you're in.

Did you talk to the Faculty who gave the lectures in the course you missed?

Right now you should not be thinking about Boards at all. Rather, focus on trying to salvage your medical career. Your school is being lenient in giving you a second try at remediation. Many other schools (including mine) would have dismissed by now.

Did you do poorly across the board with the material? Or was it only in particular areas/subject matters?

Due to the stress this is causing you, you should talk to your school's counseling center. This is NOT giving medical advice.

Also talk to your school's learning or education center for help with memorization tricks

I suggest that the way you're studying the material is not optimal. Hence you need to try something new. Talk to you classmates who have done well with the material and see what advice they have to offer.
 
Sorry to hear this OP. This puts you in a bad position, but I can't understand how they would let you sit for boards if you didn't pass this block, am I understanding this correctly? My best advice would be to follow what some of the others have said and to reach out to the school counselor and discuss your options and try to figure out why you are failing this material, but you are grasping all the other material, there is a disconnect somewhere. Talk to the counselor and set up a game plan on how to approach this remediation. I don't have to tell you that you must pass this next attempt. I wish you the best!
 
War of Arts said:
I did talk to learning advisors in my school. Honestly, they just gave me cliche concepts, and I didn't feel helpful. So far, I don't know what I did wrong for this block and remediation because my school did not allow review. My guess is I messed up all the pharm questions.

It is really subject matter, this is a pharm-heavy block and I always have a hard time grasping it, maybe also hematology I hate that too. Other than this, for the rest of the blocks, I did well and my strategy is just to put focus on pathology and clinical med (normally these two sum up to 80% + of the exams, and I can pretty much get all of them correct) and give up pharm completely.
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You need to talk to your peers and your Pharm faculty on how best to learn this material.
 
Pathoma should help with heme. If you struggle with identifying the cells/abnormalities on slides then I recommend asking a pathology prof if they can tutor you. Or even if there is a TA that can do some extra lab sessions with you. I had to do a one on one heme session with our pathologist due to turning in an assignment late (lol) and it was one of the most helpful experiences in medical school for me. I feel like I still remember most of what he showed me this many years out, not in hematology or path.
 
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