A tricky situation

[undefined74]

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Hi all,
MS4 here. Went unmatched in competitive surgical sub from a top (HMS/Penn/NYU etc) school. Have pretty good stats for the specialty with 260ish step 2, 10+ papers, mostly H, but royally screwed up signaling mostly super competitive places and didn't get many II likely as a result. Since applying have had a couple rotation failures (long story) and may need to repeat year. How screwed am I? Is it possible to recover if I can't get this fixed? Of course will be dual applying but should I just pivot to gen surg? Leave medicine completely? Would not be happy doing anything that isn't surgery and would rather not be in medicine if surgery on the whole isn't possible from here. Extremely stressed and would appreciate any input. Thanks

 

[eyeeye_captain]

What do your mentors say?

Not to be mean, but that’s gotta be a darn long story indeed if you were failing rotations to the point of possibly not graduating even before match day came around. The end of M4 should be a cakewalk.

If you wind up repeating after already not matching, yeah, that surgical sub has sailed, and very good chance that it has even if you sneak through. Pivoting to surgery may be possible if the rest of your app is as good as you say, but again, jeez.

I can’t understate this enough - even if you’d matched there’s a non-zero chance you couldn’t have started residency and would have still been blackballed from whichever specialty for being the student who couldn’t make it to the finish line. I hope you’re getting the assistance you need to be the best you can be, and that you’re in a better place.

 

[karaya]

I'm a (nontrad) M2, so maybe I'm talking out my a**, but I can't understand why you'd quit medicine if you can't hold the scalpel. Is it really that repulsive and beneath you to manage diabetes and hypertension? Is there another dream career waiting for you back home? Do you have loans?

Rhetorical Qs, all I'm saying is: don't blow up your life at the first speed bump. You made it this far; surely you've got the grit to tough out a repeat year and then a backup specialty. It's not over. But it is time to put your head down, regroup, and refocus.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Hi all,
MS4 here. Went unmatched in competitive surgical sub from a top (HMS/Penn/NYU etc) school. Have pretty good stats for the specialty with 260ish step 2, 10+ papers, mostly H, but royally screwed up signaling mostly super competitive places and didn't get many II likely as a result. Since applying have had a couple rotation failures (long story) and may need to repeat year. How screwed am I? Is it possible to recover if I can't get this fixed? Of course will be dual applying but should I just pivot to gen surg? Leave medicine completely? Would not be happy doing anything that isn't surgery and would rather not be in medicine if surgery on the whole isn't possible from here. Extremely stressed and would appreciate any input. Thanks

I agree that you have a student dean who probably advised you about playing the Match game, and you probably went against advice in distributing your signals. The rotation failures will now cloud your future application, and I'm also going to guess being stubborn will somehow make it to your MSPE in case a PD doesn't already notice you didn't match previously.

Leverage your student advising team and system. And this time, seriously heed their advice. Maybe there are some insights from the Magic 8 Ball (aka, gen/predictiveAI models in Thalamus).