Advice for General Surgery

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medschoolmyname

Lord Have MRSA
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Ok I'd appreciate some advice real quick. I'm not trying to get a what are my chances kind of thing, but just want to get some understanding. I'm thinking of going into general surgery. Step 1 of 235, have high passed my anesthesiology and ob/gyn clerkships thus far. My school system is Honors, high pass, pass, low pass, & fail (low pass is essentially a fail). I know I didn't do well on my surgery shelf so I am more than likely going to get a pass in surgery (may be able to get a high pass depending on how my evaluations go). question is if I do only "pass" my surgery block how big of a deal is this? I know that 3rd year grades are important and my goal was to high pass & honors all my courses so hopefully i do get a high pass, but if not any advice on what I can do to try to make up for this? I know making sure to knock my other rotations out is important but anything specifically to address the surgery grade in my 4th year? Will doing well in 4th year surgery sub-I's help make up for the "pass" grade? Appreciate your advice.

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ask your residents, program director, rotation director, etc. I "passed" surgery and matched a subspecialty. it can obviously be done if you have put in the work to have people vouch for you.
 
ask your residents, program director, rotation director, etc. I "passed" surgery and matched a subspecialty. it can obviously be done if you have put in the work to have people vouch for you.

Ok do you mind if I ask if your subspeciality was surgical in nature? Otherwise I'll be sure to continue to work hard. I think I am developing good relationships with people who could vouch for me in the department. Thanks for your advice.
 
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Ok do you mind if I ask if your subspeciality was surgical in nature? Otherwise I'll be sure to continue to work hard. I think I am developing good relationships with people who could vouch for me in the department. Thanks for your advice.
as was mentioned above, it's a surgical subspecialty. but I think in general surgery, having people vouch for you is the most important thing. It's a very busy, hard-working specialty and people want to know they can trust you to work hard and be a good coworker. Shelf scores don't necessarily reflect your ability to succeed as a surgery resident.
 
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As someone who also "passed" surgery (and like the OP, due to a poor shelf outing) and matched into a surgical subspecialty I agree it is certainly not impossible. Obviously it doesn't help. Someone in your shoes being outgoing and stellar on your sub-I would be very important. I also think that you might be someone that an away rotation or two might be beneficial for to show other programs that your marginal grade in surgery doesn't reflect what you can do, but I would be interested to hear if other gen surgeons agree.
 
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As someone who also "passed" surgery (and like the OP, due to a poor shelf outing) and matched into a surgical subspecialty I agree it is certainly not impossible. Obviously it doesn't help. Someone in your shoes being outgoing and stellar on your sub-I would be very important. I also think that you might be someone that an away rotation or two might be beneficial for to show other programs that your marginal grade in surgery doesn't reflect what you can do, but I would be interested to hear if other gen surgeons agree.

Not a general surgeon but if you have an outgoing personality, are easily to get along with and a strong work ethic an away rotation or two can't hurt at all.
 
thank you all for your candid advice. Will see what happens, it takes about a month for grades to come in at my school so will see soon enough. The shelf just screwed me tbh. I thought i had put the necessary time in. Felt that I worked great with my residents and attendings though so hopefully that is reflected in my eval grade.
 
It’s not a deal breaker but you obviously know the answer - that it’s not good.



It seems like a bad assumption that someone who could only manage a pass on their home turf will magically wow people on an away.

I guess I'm taking the poster at his word that it's because of a bad surgery shelf. But if not then yeah I would agree.
 
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It’s not a deal breaker but you obviously know the answer - that it’s not good.



It seems like a bad assumption that someone who could only manage a pass on their home turf will magically wow people on an away.

The one case I can think of where this might be plausible is if the student does well on the wards and “in person” but isn’t so great at standardized testing - i.e., outstanding clinical evals with a total anchor of a shelf score that lowered their overall grade.

Still a bit of a stretch IMO, but I’ve met a few folks that really are great with patients and in a team setting but don’t do well on tests.
 
The one case I can think of where this might be plausible is if the student does well on the wards and “in person” but isn’t so great at standardized testing - i.e., outstanding clinical evals with a total anchor of a shelf score that lowered their overall grade.

Still a bit of a stretch IMO, but I’ve met a few folks that really are great with patients and in a team setting but don’t do well on tests.
Why is that a stretch? Our school has a minimum shelf score for honors, etc...no matter how great your evals are, you cannot, simply cannot honor if you don't do upper end of well on the Shelf exam. I recently spoke to an upperclassman whose attending bluntly told them "I wrote you a really good eval, so if you hit threshold on shelf, you will be honoring this rotation." They haven't gotten their score back yet, but they're not optimistic; they're not the greatest at standardized tests anyway, and put more time in clinically than they did on shelf prep this block anyway (they didn't figure they had a shot at an honors eval since this was their weakest subject, so they didn't think getting a high shelf would matter).
 
Why is that a stretch? Our school has a minimum shelf score for honors, etc...no matter how great your evals are, you cannot, simply cannot honor if you don't do upper end of well on the Shelf exam. I recently spoke to an upperclassman whose attending bluntly told them "I wrote you a really good eval, so if you hit threshold on shelf, you will be honoring this rotation." They haven't gotten their score back yet, but they're not optimistic; they're not the greatest at standardized tests anyway, and put more time in clinically than they did on shelf prep this block anyway (they didn't figure they had a shot at an honors eval since this was their weakest subject, so they didn't think getting a high shelf would matter).

It's only a stretch in the sense that having concerns about your fund of knowledge if you don't do well on the shelves is not a totally unreasonable assumption.
 
Most schools’ grading scheme, a pass is basically a surrogate for a bad performance. Involves more than just not getting a great shelf score.
Granted, I think we can high pass without a particularly high shelf, so 'pass' would probably involve poor performance.
 
For perspective my shelf is worth 35% of my total. 50% is eval, and then 15% a mix of assignments, professionalism etc. To honors u need 87% or higher, high pass is 80 to 86.99, and then pass is like 70 and up. My shelf pretty much knocks me out of honors, id need a perfect eval, which i doubt ill get. Assuming i get a decent eval i should be able to get high pass, but will see. Thanks again!
 
Most schools’ grading scheme, a pass is basically a surrogate for a bad performance. Involves more than just not getting a great shelf score.
Yes, but many schools more and more seem to have shelf cut offs (like mine did, and those of several other applicants I've talked to now). If you make a certain level on the shelf you get a pass, even if your evals say you walk on water. Meanwhile, students who make "honors" on the shelf and get sub-par evals often contest their evaluation grade and the administration pulls it up to give them honors since they have a shelf in that range.
 
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Well my grade is in. I missed high passing by 1 percentage point. That actually hurts more knowing if i had gotten a percentage or two more on my shelf I could have gotten high pass. Im thinking of emailing my course coordinator to see of theres any chance of getting this grade bumped up somehow, but i doubt it. damn it, missing by 1 point just makes it hurt so much more
 
Or ask to have your grade lowered by 10 percentage points. It will hurt much less when you’re sitting comfortably on just a “pass” rather than the agony of close defeat. Cheers.
 
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