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clerkship grades
- Thread starter azuka
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If it is just one isolated set of comments, I would ignore it, you can't please everyone. If you are being criticized by everyone who writes your comments however, you need to be honest with yourself and look at how you can improve.
For example, off-base in your thinking + resistant to criticism makes it sound like you challenged the attending on some point and wouldn't let go of it. In general, challenging attendings will rarely be productive. Try not to do it.
No one knowing you existed sounds like you weren't available to help out the team when they needed it. Being a good team player is more than just doing the minimum assigned to you. Ask the residents if they need help. There are always notes to be written, there is always blood to be drawn. Plus if you help them out, they might take a moment to teach you something, everybody wins.
I don't know your unique situation, so maybe my advice doesn't apply, but above all try to make sure your colleagues like you. You will rarely get a negative eval from someone you are friendly with.
I did not challenge her. I kept my voice low and calm since I tend to have a harsh voice naturally. So, she complained that I refused to speak loud. Im really surprised she gave me such evals given that i got along very well with the team to the best of my knowledge. I always volunteered to stay and help. The residents said they enjoyed working with me and liked me. So Im really confused about the whole ordeal. Im also African and I don't know how much that played into it. She told me I was improving and on track but her evals did not say a single positive thing about me. That is one of the things that makes me paranoid about the entire thing. Im really scared because if Im doing something wrong unknowingly, How and where do I start to change it? I just want to succeed, so, I am trying to tell the entire story that way, If I need help, I can get the right advice. Thanks.
This is a pretty lame assertion and I wouldn't jump to the race card because you got a poor eval. Also I am certain it wouldn't stick because your previous grades were mediocre (no offense). You obviously were doing some wrong that you weren't aware of.
I would discuss this with your clerkship director. I think that kind of eval from an attending is pretty bad. No matter what anyone says most attendings have worked with hundreds of students over their careers and are pretty good at giving an eval of where the student is at that point in their career. However, if this attending usually gives really harsh evals it may not be so bad. Nothing you can really do right now though.
Well, for the courses I did poorly on, it was from doing poorly on the shelves. I had great evals in neuro and psych but didn't do so well on the shelf, those courses were also my weaknesses during pre-clinical years. Im not planning on using the race card. Im just worried about it being an issue. Im also surprised about the evals given that she told me I had improved so much. Im freaking out so much cause I have never gotten this type of evals before.
And If I was doing as badly as she say, wouldn't it have been fair for her to pull me over during the 3weeks i was with her and tell me i was completely screwing up? Everytime I asked for feedback, she came up with a reason not to talk with me or said I had improved greatly. Im very shocked given that some of the things were obviously not true. Waiting on my other EVals. I hope they are different. Either way, Im looking to take a lesson from this and improve on my other courses.
well you have learned the lesson of not asking for feedback because a great majority of people will just say "you're doing fine". If you honestly feel this person is discriminating against you then inform the clerkship director immediately. I'm not saying this never happens as I'm sure it happened to someone at some point. But if you only believe that because of a poor eval, it is my opinion you are simply trying to come up with an excuse for what may have been, on your part, a poor performance.
Look, just move past it. Unless the attending gave you mostly 1's or 2's (out of 5) it's probably not going to be an issue. However, if you did get very low marks like that I would contact your clerkship director. As you say, it may be a fluke because if all the residents thought you were great this attending may be being overly harsh. Don't contact the attending. State your concerns concisely and matter-of-fact to the director and let him/her deal with the attending. I think it is perfectly reasonable to do so if you got low marks and especially if there was a disconnect with how you felt you were progressing.
Likely the worst thing that would happen is you'd have to repeat some time on the wards at a later date, getting an "incomplete" for the course for the time being. Schools generally don't like to straight up fail their students.
As for how this may affect future chances at residency... well at this point just try to ace the rest of your rotations. Do a sub-i in medicine and get a great LOR letting the writer know past issues you had so he/she can address it. If you have decent board scores you should be ok to match somewhere in obgyn. It's not a very competitive field.
Thank you. She did give me 1's and a few 2's. Im really shocked. I have 3 rotations left, so hopefully, I do well on them. Thanks for the encouraging words.
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Haha there are no hour limits for med students.
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Not exactly true. As of July med students cannot be on a single shift longer than 16 hours. That means no overnights on surgery.
While it may be easiest to brush it off and say it was the evaluator's problem, 1s and 2s means that you really have some issues in general. Even people who know absolutely nothing / have a terrible knowledge base tend to get 3's etc based on effort and ability to get along with everyone. I'd consider talking to that attending and asking them what exactly about your performance prompted such an eval. The rotation's over so it's not like it could hurt you more than it already has.
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So this is true for interns, but some schools have not adopted the 16 hour rule for students because they want the students to know what it feels like to be an upper level resident on surgery or medicine after an overnight shift. Not working overnight gives one a false sense about the amount of hours one will have to work in residency. The 2nd year residents at my school told me they had no idea how hard the upper levels worked when they were interns because they didn't work overnight during their first year.
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I can't tell you much about OB-GYN, but what I can tell you is this: take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself whether there is any way to improve your attitude. I am guessing you are able to learn, and if you show up with a positive attitude and do your best to improve I think your clerkship grades will go up. Reading between the lines it sounds like you were not very active in your clerkship and you probably had a pretty negative attitude when you did interact with people.
Do not resign yourself to Cs and Fs through your clerkship year and hope that some OB/GYN program will still take you, do whatever you can to bring those grades up. There is still plenty of time to redeem yourself.
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That's not universal, even at a single school. Some of our clerkships stick to the 16-hour rule, some don't.
Not true. I just got home from the hospital after arriving there at 6 am yesterday
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Where did you see this? I also thought that the hours didn't apply to med students.
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Same. Some of the rotations let us get capped at 16 hours, others don't. I'm almost positive that's still an optional policy.
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My school now has this policy across the board. I thought it was nationwide, my mistake.
That is why Im confused. I did study alot for the clerkship, but she says I have limited knowlegde. My shelf score was in the 80th percentile. How can one get that with limited knowledge? She also told me I took excellent history and physicals and that I needed to work on my differential list. However, she failed every aspect of my evaluation including the history and physicals portion and the reasons she gave pertained to the differential list and then pointed out that I was resistant to criticism. Im confused about this given that I constantly asked if there were things I needed to do to improve. She also told me I had improved alot even when I did not ask. I got along well with the team as the resident told me.
Anyway, I have been reflecting on the rotation alot. Maybe I should have spoken up alot more. Im not saying she should have given me a perfect eval, I was hoping that she was going to be fair. Most evaluators expect you to show up and make an effort to get an A and I feel like im getting the short end of the stick. Im shocked at the eval given that I did not have a bad relationship with her. Anyway, Im doing my best to improve on the other clerkship. I really hope my school allows me the opportunity to start 3rd year all over.
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So it seems her biggest thing against you was resistant to criticism. You imply that you aren't, but you seem pretty defensive (aka resistant to criticism) even in this thread.
If you feel she was grossly unfair, talk to the clerkship director.
It doesn't really matter how much you know if you never show/use it just fyi.
It does seem, if your story is true, that she was contradictory - saying good job on one thing and then failing you for it later.
I'd probably ask her what I could do better, and if she could explain each of the failing scores. And then I'd listen and never once interrupt. None of this - I got 80% on the shelf so how can you say I don't know anything, or you weren't fair about this, etc etc.
I agree with the above posters though, if it's just this one, and you're fine on the other rotations then I wouldn't worry about it. I would get my a** in gear and do way better on the subsequent rotations. If you think it was a racist/prejudice thing, then talk to the director, though it seems on the rotation itself you didn't get that impression at all.
If you feel she was grossly unfair, talk to the clerkship director.
It doesn't really matter how much you know if you never show/use it just fyi.
It does seem, if your story is true, that she was contradictory - saying good job on one thing and then failing you for it later.
I'd probably ask her what I could do better, and if she could explain each of the failing scores. And then I'd listen and never once interrupt. None of this - I got 80% on the shelf so how can you say I don't know anything, or you weren't fair about this, etc etc.
I agree with the above posters though, if it's just this one, and you're fine on the other rotations then I wouldn't worry about it. I would get my a** in gear and do way better on the subsequent rotations. If you think it was a racist/prejudice thing, then talk to the director, though it seems on the rotation itself you didn't get that impression at all.
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I always found it pathetic when I hear that work hours didn't apply to med students. I know that they don't need students around, so why force people to stay when they are bored to tears.
Save the people that want to go to surgery, who would voluntarily stay
Save the people that want to go to surgery, who would voluntarily stay
you fail to mention what you did when she gave feedback. If when giving feedback you gave some attitude back or tried to give explainations during the feedback then I would say that is being resistant whether you asked for feedback or not.
Also with a history and physical the goal is to get information that support a differential. You should have a preliminary list with just the chief complaint, age, vitals. 30 yo M no pmhx c/o chest pain - e.g. I doubt that it is a MI. You then need a focused way to ask questions, do a physical, come up with a final differential and form a work-up plan to test your differential.
Finally if you give a poor presentation that could be a reason for her thinking you don't know much. Attendings form opinions on students and can tell a lot based on how they present a patient. I recommend practicing in the future and asking the residents how the attending likes his/her presentations.
oh and you won't restart 3rd year. As I said maybe you'll have to repeat some time or they'll just scale the grade and you'll end up with a "pass" for the rotation.
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I guess my school didn't get the memo. Our official policy is that we cannot work more than the PGY2 and above with no more than 24 consecutive hours of patient care time. And I do have friends pulling 30+ hour shifts (w/ overnight call, obviously) without time to sleep.
Edit: I see you posted it was a memo for your school, and I didn't want to make it seem like I was calling you out for being wrong. I was more calling my school out for not being in line with policy, but I guess they are.
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I don't think you should feel like you are missing out by not having that policy in place anyway. I did trauma surgery during third year when we still had 24 hour call and all the cool cases came in at night. It will suck for students to take trauma surg this year, as they will be forced to miss all the action.
She told me at the end of the rotation with her and asked me what I thought about it. My reply was I understand your poin and I would study harder to better get the diagnosis. She even suggested sources I should use.
This is my first negative Evals and I'm really depressed about it. My greatest problem now ispsychological effect it has one and I'm trying not to let it affect my current rotation. Maybe my body language was sayInh something else. I just need advise on how to handle this and move on. I also wanted to tell the whole story. I have never seen anyone get that type of eval even those who don't show up. Anyway, if I fail, they Mayans me repeat third year. I don't know if that's good or bad but whatever happens, I will have to deal with it in theist possitivee way. Sooty for typo. On phone
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What happened with the C in Psych?
I did poorly on the shelf. It was my first shelf and I dd not realize that we had moved from dx and now it was all about management. Learnt my lesson and changed my studying style. I got very good Evals there, most 5 and a few 4s. Anyway, I just need advise on how to proceed. And I'm goin to work on the criticism she gave. I just don't know how or where to start since I did not realize I was doing everything wrong. It's hard to believe that there was no positive. Any specific advise would help.
1. see my above post on how to do a proper H&P
2. practice your presentations before you give them. Go in a logical order. CC, HPI, ROS, PMHx, MEDs, FHx, SHx, VITALS, PEx, LABS, A&P -- this will vary from attending to attending as each may like it a certain way. Confer with the residents about the proper way or even just ask the attending
3. Before you present each day review the plan with the resident to make sure you've got the idea so that when you review the patient with the attending you sound smarter (you'll also learn more this way).
4. Go in with a good attitude. Be helpful. Do not complain, ever.
Those are just some general things for your rotations.
As I said attendings form their opinion of you based mainly on your presentation skills. Sure they look at how good you are at pimp questions but if your presentations are disorganized and your plan makes no sense you will not sound smart.
Thank you very much. Will do just that
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Do you have any other attendings in IM?
I'd honestly not worry about it too much at this point, just try to get better evals in the future. Maybe consider if your presentations could improve. I got blasted on a bunch of evals last year just because I wasn't confident in my presentations and struggled with them a bit. I honestly don't think that's really fair, but it's the way it is, and being able to communicate clearly is a very important skill to develop.
Im still to receive the rest of my evaluation for this course. It's been 9weeks already since I officially completed the course. I also found out that the two other student I was in the course with have received their grades. How do I get her to send mine? Im so tired of the emotional strain it is having on me given that I'm expecting something bad so far.
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speak to the course director. if you are at a US/CA MD school, it's now LCME-required to have clerkship grades available to students within six weeks after the end of the course.
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That may be the law, but it soooooooooooooooooooo does not happen.
After struggling all this while, She finally chose to post my grade. She had initially written that i should repeat then she changed it to a C. I got my other evaluation from the other faculty who passed me and said i wrote excellent HP. Given that he was my attending at the later period, I believed it should have counted more as she had promised. I really don't know why I chose to do that Rotation in Knoxville. I should have stayed in the bigger city where racial diversity is better. Every time, she called me just to get more information about me to use against me. She did not even wait for my other evaluations. And they have given me the run arounds since i started asking for the other evaluations. She said my fund of knowledge was "good" in quotes. I guess that explains all the weird interaction she had with me.
Anyway, Im just expressing my frustrations. Really depressed now. Studying for pediatric shelf. Hope I do well. Saw my peds evaluations already and they were very good. So hopefully, I can pull a good grade.
Anyway, Im just expressing my frustrations. Really depressed now. Studying for pediatric shelf. Hope I do well. Saw my peds evaluations already and they were very good. So hopefully, I can pull a good grade.
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I struggled quite a bit in third year and got a number of bad evals. I think the worst thing you can do is let them get to you. Try to take what you can from them; if you think the issue is you weren't very confident in your H and Ps, try to practice them alone in front of the mirror until you've memorized how you're going to give them. If you think maybe the person evaluating you has something against you and their comments about you aren't valid, ignore them and move on. Remember this is a pretty subjective process and a bad eval doesn't mean you're a bad student or going to be a bad doctor. I know it's easier said than done, but don't be depressed, because it will make it harder for you to do well in the rest of the year.
I want to match into oB/gyn. Worked so hard for med and did great on shelf but one lady evaluated me so badly that i ended up with a C. Should I ask to redo third year? I really don't want to stay un-matched. How do i convince the administration to let me redo third year again? What are my chances of matching? btw, Im burnt out.
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What? Is this a troll thread? Redoing third year won't change your grade, and it'll look 100x worse on residency applications.
my other attending gave me 3 n 4. I'm mad because i asked for ways to improve myself n she basically refused to tell me.then, when her week was over, she tells me to improve on my fund of knowledge, I'm too mad. i can't believe she hated me that much, I'm still wondering what i did to her to actually deserve 1s. looks like she was bend on crippling me,
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Trolls dont even try these days.
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wut??
Given your tenuous grasp on English I am assuming you are not a US MD student and matching OB/gyn in the states is pretty unlikely for you anyways.
Thanks. I have been studying a lot and would give it my best shot come january. Where can I find statistics about different Ob/gyn programs? I have looked at a few website but they don't tell the average score or GPA. I did above average on step I. Im still trying to figure out what happened with medicine. Im also angry cause I gave it my best shot and did very well on the shelf.
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Without a doubt, re-doing 3rd year is the way to go in this situation. Work hard! Good luck!
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*student
*and
*you
really? Are we doing the highschool dropout facebook thing now with our typing? To answer your question - I doubt they will let you retake 3rd year over an average grade. Many schools dont even have formal grades for clerkships so many PDs don't put a whole lot of emphasis on them. Doing will in OB/gyn is going to be more important than this is anyways, and if you did well on step1 compared to averages for that specialty you should be fine. Your step1 score and letters will mean much more than a C in IM.
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Um because I joined sophomore year of college and I am now a M3...I don't get your point.
Your original post makes ZERO sense.
That being said, ob/gyn isn't all that competitive. Even people at the bottom of the class match at a high rate.
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This document should become your bible for residency applications. FWIW, 94% of US MD seniors who applied to OB/Gyn in 2011 matched, with an average Step 1 of 220. That puts it pretty close in competitiveness to IM and Peds (ie average to below-average in competitiveness).
Of course some programs will be more competitive than others, but there are very few data out there on stats for individual programs.
