Are we learning enough?

[amikhchi]

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First off, I want to say that this is NOT a troll post by any means... just my initial disclaimer.

I finished my first semester of a caribbean med-school (one of the well known) and am currently going through my 2nd. I have friends in different schools spread out (both MD and DO) and I talk to them here and there about how things are going. All i hear is how hard it is and how they're opting for pass/fail in some classes and how they're failing exams and all. I'm not one to argue, I mean, it's medical school...

My question comes along because I see my friends and how much they're struggling, and then I look at myself and see that I'm not struggling... I got a 4.0 in my 1st semester. But this doesn't comfort me, instead it makes me wonder why everyone is saying how hard it is but I don't see it that way... I mean, i'm not conceited but I think I have what it takes to succeed in med school (based on my mcat) but even with that i'm worried that I am not learning enough here. Some would say to just shut up and be happy, but realistically I rather learn what I need to learn and it be harder and get worse grades, than get a below-par education and have good grades but be less prepared in the future...

what do you guys think? Am i just reading way too much into the situation?

 

[Jolie South]

I don't know that failing is that common. Only a handful of people in my 170-180 person class would fail any given exam at most.

 

[Bernoull]

There's always gonna be someone acing everything, apparently that's u.. Acing courses =/= subpar program, assuming means are not ridiculously high. Clearly ur performance is not cause for concern, do u have some GOOD reason to believe ur curriculum isn't preparing well enough, because that would be concerning!

 

[amikhchi]

Class avg's for my school aren't low (roughly low 80s for most of it), but when i talk to my friends in other schools they mention how they (or their friends) barely pass exams and everything is so ridiculously hard... that's my only cause for concern really

 

[Stixman28]

Class avg's for my school aren't low (roughly low 80s for most of it), but when i talk to my friends in other schools they mention how they (or their friends) barely pass exams and everything is so ridiculously hard... that's my only cause for concern really

have u compared material with ure buddies? Or kinds of questions? to see if the schools are requiring similar knowledge depth from their students?

 

[amikhchi]

No, I haven't seen any of their exam questions or practice questions or anything like that. I thought about asking, but it just seems like a rude thing to ask, then again we've been friends for a LONG time...

 

[2012mdc]

No, I haven't seen any of their exam questions or practice questions or anything like that. I thought about asking, but it just seems like a rude thing to ask, then again we've been friends for a LONG time...

Do you guys take pre-clinical shelf exams? I don't go to a big name school and had some concern about how I would compare nationally. Grades ended up correlating with shelf exam scores and relieved my similar concerns

 

[sanjoe10]

No, I haven't seen any of their exam questions or practice questions or anything like that. I thought about asking, but it just seems like a rude thing to ask, then again we've been friends for a LONG time...

Really all that matters is Step 1 at this point, right? I'm sure they have a list of Step 1 topics somewhere. you could look at those and see if you're curriculum matches up to it. In any case, if you're at one of the well-known carib schools then they're probably teaching you all the right stuff

 

[exptherainbow]

Are you graded on a curve? Perhaps your excellent grades have to do with the relative performance of other people in your class?

My school is graded on a pretty strict curve, so while the averages are high you still have to meet the performance standards of everyone else in the class in order to pass. An 80 could be a failing grade if everyone studied exceptionally hard (which they have a nasty habit of doing).

 

[Wilf]

It's probably that you're at a Caribbean medical school. They notoriously don't prepare their students well for step 1.

 

[MedStudentWanna]

Class avg's for my school aren't low (roughly low 80s for most of it), but when i talk to my friends in other schools they mention how they (or their friends) barely pass exams and everything is so ridiculously hard... that's my only cause for concern really

This is largely school dependent. Most of our exam averages are in the low to mid 70s with the median around there too, meaning half the class got lower than that. We've had a few exams where the class average is below 70%. Those exams are curved, but many people fail. At a school where class averages are in the mid to upper 80s, I'd say that a very small minority fail, but if your class average is a 73%, chances are several people failed.