Thanks for the responses. So it sounds like you still have a decent shot without everything in honors. I tend to do really well on written tests usually so that part doesn't concern me. It is my ability to make any kind of impression in a short rotation when it takes me a week or two to just adjust because of my shyness, that concerns me. I'm also a tad slow at learning hands on things, although eventually I get good at it. I just wish the entire 3rd year was like under one team or something so I wouldn't have to worry about make a good first impression every few weeks.
You definitely need to adjust super-fast, i.e. deterine your role, figure out what level of conversation you need to have with attendings and residents, and then roll over the rotation like a steam-roller.
1. Don't be shy at all. At my best I would be volunteering to do stuff every *day*, i.e. pick up extra patients, go to radiology, go watch a procedure, volunteer to present a topic, volunteer to clean up after a noon conference, do impromptu teaching of others. I don't think you have to be social at all, or even know what is *cool* in current pop-cultures, I don't. But if a resident is talking about something I don't know about like kayaking or something, which I'll admit residents say some pretty interesting things, I will ask them questions as otherwise we will just be standing around waiting for the attending. Don't be fooled by overly intimidating attendings, this is not the military, its is ok to small-talk with people who are only a couple of years ahead of you.
2. Hi-Jack the rotation. Some rotations the residents may not be into teaching that month, or the attending may not be into teaching, or students may be given less responsibility than normal. You have to make the rotation work for you, the student. Never, should you walk away and say that you weren't taught enough, if you can read a medicine textbook, and if you can look at your patient's chart, then you can piece together how the care happened the way it did, and you can ask good questions to the attendings later on, rather than asking a question for questions sake. If you felt you didn't learn enough, then probably you didn't understand half of what was happening around you, there are always interesting cases and bread and butter cases being managed at hospitals, and 100% you can learn something new from every patient. Rotations don't feel like tedious work for me, because I am trying to extract as much learning, trying to take care of patients, and be productive doing "scut". There really isn't anything that is "scut" on a rotation, even filling out the almighty list of patients you learn, I have done real scut as a semi-patient care technician before medical school. I think I have done really well on my rotations last year because other med students sit around and blabber, I look at it as a job instead of trying to be the good 'lil observer, attendings pickup on this because under no circumstance will I ever try to get out of doing something or seeing an extra surgery, I am there to work and learn period. Alot of med students, and some interns, residents, and attendings that I have worked with, have zero work ethic, I feel sorry for them, but apparently my work ethics has impressed alot of attendings. Especially surgeons, I scare the crap out of surgery residents for some reason, at least the lazy ones.
I think that says it all.
