Dismissed for us medical school need help

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RedVelvet1

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I was dismissed from a US medical school 4th year and my appeal was rejected. Does anybody have any advice? It was for a shelf exam (barely missed cutoff), NOT anything unprofessional. Additionally, the school denied me certain accommodations from earlier on. PM me if you want more details or have more advice.

I do not need any comments such as: Leave medicine. If you want to say these things go elsewhere.
 

projectlogic

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Have you appealed?

Seems weird that they dismissed you for just failing a shelf exam. Is there something else that we don't know, OP?
 

Gastrapathy

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I was dismissed from a US medical school 4th year and my appeal was rejected. Does anybody have any advice? It was for a shelf exam (barely missed cutoff), NOT anything unprofessional. Additionally, the school denied me certain accommodations from earlier on. PM me if you want more details or have more advice.

I do not need any comments such as: Leave medicine. If you want to say these things go elsewhere.

While I think it is unlikely that a single shelf failure lead to dismissal, your only avenue is to argue the due process was not followed via an appeal. Get an employment attorney and investigate your appeal avenues up to and including legal action. For your sake, you need to find a place where they didn't follow their own rules.
 

link2swim06

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I was dismissed from a US medical school 4th year and my appeal was rejected. Does anybody have any advice? It was for a shelf exam (barely missed cutoff), NOT anything unprofessional. Additionally, the school denied me certain accommodations from earlier on. PM me if you want more details or have more advice.

I do not need any comments such as: Leave medicine. If you want to say these things go elsewhere.

Your story currently doesn't add up. I have never heard of someone getting dismissed for a single failed shelf.

What shelf did you fail? Most 4th years don't typically take a whole lot of shelf exams.

Regardless if your appeal didn't go through then your only shot at medicine is to apply again. You might be able to get into a carribean med school or something.
 
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The only reason that they would throw you out during 4th year is if they really thought you couldn't go on and eventually practice medicine as a physician competently. Did you pass step 1? Did you receive marginal evaluations throughout 3rd year rotations?
Perhaps they are right in their assessment. It's something to think about. I knew two people who washed out of medicine in the navy during internship/residency. I'm sure if they went back and reviewed all their evaluations, the writing was on the wall years earlier.
 

Dr Love

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It's hard for random people to give you advice while you are being so secretive. They didn't dismiss you for one exam, you were on probation right? Why were you on probation? Does your school have mandatory guidelines? For example, in my school failing two classes in one year leads to automatic dismissal. Is there a pathway to apply for reinstatement? Can you apply for re-admission? How were the other aspects of your performance - step 1, clinical evals, etc? Do you have any faculty that could advocate for you? Are you at a student-friendly university?
 

GoSpursGo

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I was on academic probation

Well then you weren't dismissed for failing a shelf exam; you were on academic probation presumably for struggling elsewhere along the way, and this shelf was the straw that broke the camel's back. Not trying to be mean, but trying to play up the injustice as being greater than it was ("It was just ONE shelf exam") does not make it seem like you are taking responsibility for the situation and won't look good as you try and make another appeal.

I won't mince words: that sucks, and I'm really sorry this happened to you :( As others have said, really your only recourse would be if you could argue that they didn't give you due process via the appeals process, or that they wrongfully denied you accommodations for a medical condition (I'm assuming ADD); without knowing more about your school, its policies, and how they handled your specific situation, I'm not sure where you'll get on any of those arguments, but if you really want to go down that route I'd suggest meeting with a lawyer to find out if you might have a case on any of those grounds. The alternative would be if you have faculty members that you have an excellent relationship with who can talk about your ability and would be willing to advocate for you that the committee reverse their decision.

If all of that fails, I would echo that you could look into a PA program. It will be a tough pill to swallow, but I have friends who were dismissed from med school and eventually became very happy with PA school.

Good luck.
 

Perrotfish

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I was dismissed from a US medical school 4th year and my appeal was rejected. Does anybody have any advice? It was for a shelf exam (barely missed cutoff), NOT anything unprofessional. Additionally, the school denied me certain accommodations from earlier on. PM me if you want more details or have more advice.

I do not need any comments such as: Leave medicine. If you want to say these things go elsewhere.

You might find some sympathy, but advice is going to be in short supply if you don't want to share the details. Why were you on probation? Why did you need accomodations and how did you inform them of you requirements? What did you fail? How were your previous grades? How were your evaluations? How do appeals work at your school?

Not that I'm promising great advice anyway. Students seem to have very, very few rights except those granted to them by their schools. The main lines of advice you're going to hear are probably 'go back and grovel for another appeal' and 'get a lawyer', and I'm not sure what the success rate is for either. ANyway you definitely have my sympathy. Whatever led up to it, this situation sucks.
 
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