3rd year grade...arrgh

[InternationlDoc]

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Got 99th percentile on neurology shelf...got a B on the rotation

Attending went down the grading criteria and just wrote "good" across all categories. Fantastic. This, in our grading scheme, = B

I mean WTF. I busted my ass, and my friend at this other hospital got 5 outstanding/ 6 categories and an average shelf and gets an A. WTF

WHY WHY WHY. I am going to be speaking to my dean, but I don't think it matters. There goes my bid for AOA and the rest. How do you guys deal with this. How does one go by unscathed like first 2 year (where there was no subjectivity). I mean how do people come out and say "oh and I got all A's 3rd year"...I just don't think I can do it in 100 lives. Infact, after this I don't even want to study hard for a shelf. Whatever.

Sorry, that was a big rant. But really frustrated here.Thought the 3rd year subjectivity wouldn't affect me. I was wrong. After raving reviews in peds and ob/gyn, a neurology attending does this. NEUROLOGY! useless.

 

[soulofmpatel]

Rule #1: NO WHINING

 

[45408]

WHY WHY WHY. I am going to be speaking to my dean, but I don't think it matters. There goes my bid for AOA and the rest.

if this is the thing that keeps you from AOA, then you were a marginal candidate anyways. If you were a strong candidate before, don't sweat ONE rotation with a B. It's not like you flunked the rotation. And maybe you got the grade you deserved.

 

[InternationlDoc]

yea it could be that I deserved this, but then nobody has gotten great eval from this attending (oh I made sure of asking some students before jumping to conclusions). I thought I put in alot of work. But whatever. its ok. On to medicine clerkship.

 

[45408]

yea it could be that I deserved this, but then nobody has gotten great eval from this attending (oh I made sure of asking some students before jumping to conclusions). I thought I put in alot of work. But whatever. its ok. On to medicine clerkship.

I think some attendings think they're giving you a good grade by giving you all 7s. I wish our evals were all words instead of numbers. I mean really, can you differentiate between a 6/10 student and a 7/10 student? Why not just have them circle the grade they'd like to give you?

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

I wish our evals were all words instead of numbers. I mean really, can you differentiate between a 6/10 student and a 7/10 student?

I don't think there is much improvement in a system that uses terms like "outstanding med student" vs "excellent med student" - I have a much harder time differentiating between the secret adjective code grades like that than a numeric scale.

 

[LadyWolverine]

Got 99th percentile on neurology shelf...got a B on the rotation

Welcome to 3rd year. I know it's frustrating. Just roll with it and keep doing the best you can. There's nothing you can do about it now.

 

[Man In White]

How does one go by unscathed like first 2 year (where there was no subjectivity).

Be glad you can cling to this nugget - my school is already hemorrhaging objectivity in basic science scoring now (subjective grading ~50% of overall score).

Re: clinicals, just be sure to work your ass off on the rotation in which you're most interested, and try not to sweat the others if you get a B.

 

[45408]

I don't think there is much improvement in a system that uses terms like "outstanding med student" vs "excellent med student" - I have a much harder time differentiating between the secret adjective code grades like that than a numeric scale.

well, outstanding vs excellent is a stupid scale too. I meant they should be looking at your grades "Honors - High Pass - Pass - Low Pass - Fail" and circle one. Excellent, good, fair, barely adequate, fail.

 

[InternationlDoc]

hey prowler, agree with you 100% bro

yea, this student is 6/10 the other is 8/10 ...sure you might say that after you've known the student for a month personally, but our rotation was 2 weeks! and you judge us that quickly by assigning this one student excellent and other average? really? Thats bull

I know I might seem like a douche to say this, but this other student absolutely was NOT outstanding to be receiving an A, and if he/she was then everybody in our student group should be for there was no objective criteria to judge him/her outstanding.

I already voiced my opinion to the administration, to no avail (oh don't worry/its not in our hands/ thats how it is/ our way or the highway/ etc...essentially suck it up)

basically, 3rd year is random and thus LUCK is involved in BS rotations of 2 weeks where you change "teams" twice...go figure.

 

[InternationlDoc]

thanks to other posters...yea needed that boost up guys
Good luck to yall in clinical rotations. PEACE

oh man in white..dude that sucks man. I guess me and you shuold just follow the words of ladywolverine...speaking of you, GO BLUE! I miss ann arbor dearly. you watching that bball team...thats right!

 

[Scaredshizzles]

Nothing you can do, different people grade you, some people give everyone 10/10 honors, and some give no one that. Interobserver bias is going to be there. And you can't really tell the grader that you must give such and such number of honors, such and such number of HPs, etc. because one grader rarely sees more than a handful of students and the logistics of it just get too complicated. Ideally if you get 99%ile and there is nothing egregious on your comments (i.e. poor attendence, unprofessional, etc.), the course director should give you honors, but not all course directors care enough to sort through the grades, they let a secretary do it sometimes. So it might be worth it to ask the course director anyway, especially if the CD seems to be a nice/reasonable person.

 

[zoomzoomzoom]

You should consider yourself lucky that your shelf score counts for anything. At my school, we have to take the shelves but they don't factor into our grade at all, so third year is 100% subjective. So gone are my chances of AOA and as a result I've stopped letting the BS get to me.

 

[Its_MurDAH]

You should consider yourself lucky that your shelf score counts for anything. At my school, we have to take the shelves but they don't factor into our grade at all, so third year is 100% subjective. So gone are my chances of AOA and as a result I've stopped letting the BS get to me.

are you sure this is actually a med school and not just hell?

I completely agree with the OP. It seems like doing well on the shelf and all your knowledge isn't worth jack because some other fake, sweet-smiling, med student with DSLs will get all the good evals and take your honors spot in an instant.

 

[indo]

Perhaps you weren't Indian enough to honor Neuro. I hear that this is the main criterion.

 

[Pewl]

The dean at my school just showed some of us a printout of the % of honors per rotation that different schools give out. The variability is astonishing. There was one school in the south (I wont' say that name) that gave out over 80% honors for each rotation!

Other schools gave out anywhere from 25-60% honors.

 

[johnsmith777]

welcome to medicine, where everything is subjective.

this is why the step1 is the most important thing for residencies.

so hopefully you rocked the step1.

 

[Rogue Synapse]

My school in the South sets Honors at the top 15% of each rotation, which means they're only assigned at the end of the year after everybody has completed their rotations. Otherwise, it's just pass or fail. So right now I really don't know how many (if any) honors I have.

 

[InternationlDoc]

more responses than I thought on this thread

my school has top 10-15% as well. Well, my beef with my neurology grade was mainly that I was with that attending for 1 week and our whole rotation was only 2 week. Also, it was mainly a consultaiton service. So that eval by him is garbage, since time was so short.

But yea, subjectivity reigns supreme. On another note, for whatever reason, I am loving medicine so far - I guess I lucked out since I am on a great team with a good attending?

 

[mtDNA]

yeah, subjectivity in 3rd year is pretty much out of control.

Check this out:

I am currently doing a rotation where I have 2 attendings that I work with (separately). When I gave them my midcourse evals, one of them said that my strongest point was my presentations, they are excellent. I sit down with the other one, and do you know what she says? "you really need to work on your presentations, this is your biggest problem". What the heck do I even do with this? These are polar opposites. Judging from the rest of the eval, I think one of them is going to give me an excellent grade, and the other a terrible grade. It is unbelievable to me, its as if they are grading completely different students.

I like third year, because I feel like I am learning alot, but the grading is what is driving me insane. I just hope I can get into a good ER program even with a couple bad grades, because that is what I am going to end up with.