Do many people get accepted into medical school then drop out due to poor work ethic/discipline?

[779663]

This is my greatest fear, I think about it constantly.

I know myself, and I've never been able to focus for long periods of time working day in and day out. Being a disciplined student is my weakness and I know that. In college i struggled with it but I rely on my ability to cram well and my own intelligence to do well.

I'm applying now, and with any luck, I'll hopefully get in somewhere. I've worked hard, but I often let myself slip and have to play catch up

I'm terrified that I won't be able to handle medical school and that eventually my luck would run out. I know I have the needed intelligence to understand medical school level topics and material, but the idea of the immense pace and "drinking out of a fire hose" analogy of medical school is terrifying me.

I often fall behind and have to catch up in school, but I don't know if I'll be able to quit that habit in medical school.

Being a physician is my dream, and it always has been, but I don't want to set myself up for failure.

Are there many stories of students like me who have succeeded in medical school?

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[deleted480308]

This is my greatest fear, I think about it constantly.

I know myself, and I've never been able to focus for long periods of time working day in and day out. Being a disciplined student is my weakness and I know that. In college i struggled with it but I rely on my ability to cram well and my own intelligence to do well.

I'm terrified that I won't be able to handle medical school and that eventually my luck would run out. I know I have the needed intelligence to understand medical school level topics and material, but the idea of the immense pace and "drinking out of a fire hose" analogy of medical school is terrifying me.

I often fall behind and have to catch up in school, but I don't know if I'll be able to quit that habit in medical school.

Being a physician is my dream, and it always has been, but I don't want to set myself up for failure.

Are there many stories of students like me who have succeeded in medical school?

no....you either get your crap together or you get washed out

 

[studentdocftw]

You need to address this prior to matriculation. The mentality/habit you currently have will sink you.

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

Get help now before you apply. Even if it makes you delay things by a few years , that's better than wasting a couple years in med school maybe going 100k in debt and having absolutely nothing to show for it.

But to answer the thread title. Something along the line of 95% of US med school matriculant get their doctorate. (I don't have the numbers committed to memory). So very few people fail or drop out but it DOES happen

 

[darkjedi]

Many? No. Some? Yes. Chances are you wouldn't have even made it into med school if you weren't at least a little bit Type-A and had your **** together. There are definitely those that drop out because they couldn't hack it, or just felt that it wasn't for them. Better to figure it out early before you're 250k in debt.

 

[aalamruad]

This is my greatest fear, I think about it constantly.

I know myself, and I've never been able to focus for long periods of time working day in and day out. Being a disciplined student is my weakness and I know that. In college i struggled with it but I rely on my ability to cram well and my own intelligence to do well.

I'm applying now, and with any luck, I'll hopefully get in somewhere. I've worked hard, but I often let myself slip and have to play catch up

I'm terrified that I won't be able to handle medical school and that eventually my luck would run out. I know I have the needed intelligence to understand medical school level topics and material, but the idea of the immense pace and "drinking out of a fire hose" analogy of medical school is terrifying me.

I often fall behind and have to catch up in school, but I don't know if I'll be able to quit that habit in medical school.

Being a physician is my dream, and it always has been, but I don't want to set myself up for failure.

Are there many stories of students like me who have succeeded in medical school?

US med school attrition rate is around 4%. Incredibly low. If you get into med school, you're capable of making it all the way through.

 

[Crayola227]

This is my greatest fear, I think about it constantly.

I know myself, and I've never been able to focus for long periods of time working day in and day out. Being a disciplined student is my weakness and I know that. In college i struggled with it but I rely on my ability to cram well and my own intelligence to do well.

I'm applying now, and with any luck, I'll hopefully get in somewhere. I've worked hard, but I often let myself slip and have to play catch up

I'm terrified that I won't be able to handle medical school and that eventually my luck would run out. I know I have the needed intelligence to understand medical school level topics and material, but the idea of the immense pace and "drinking out of a fire hose" analogy of medical school is terrifying me.

I often fall behind and have to catch up in school, but I don't know if I'll be able to quit that habit in medical school.

Being a physician is my dream, and it always has been, but I don't want to set myself up for failure.

Are there many stories of students like me who have succeeded in medical school?

yes, my friend, I was your brand of ****show but maybe for different reasons

yes, you can make it through like this, cramming, good recog skills, and being good at standardized tests can get you through the door, and if you're good enough, will see you through

BUT

yes, you will have to work more hours than you are now
and this, strategy, for lack of a better word, will weigh heavy on you

the constant catchup game is enormously stressful, more than if you just did it right to begin with and didn't fall behind

I've warned people that falling behind day 1 you never ever catch up (I have a doom and gloom post somewhere... SDN search function my name "just pass bad mentality)

so you should be scared enough right now to try to change your ways
but not so scared you quit before you start

I can do it you can do it, but you can do it better and you should

 

[studentdocftw]

actually the graduation rate over 8 years is 96.6% so 3.4% attrition ( 8 years is used to cover dual degrees). medical schools make great efforts to go through the thousands of applications to select students that will succeed. once they do accept you and you matriculate the schools have a great investment in you and give you almost opportuity to succeed. it should be noted the the 5 year graduation rate is 94.1% while the 4 year is only 82.5. this effectively leaves 7% split amongst those taking a year for projects/research mostly to enhance residency competitiveness, and those either planned or for remediation.

In short, once you get into medical school you are almost certain to earn a degree.

https://www.aamc.org/download/37922...onratesandattritionfactorsforusmedschools.pdf

and if it doesnt work out you can always go to Trump University Medical School and Casino, a new resort opening on a Carribean island near you. Its gonna be yuge!

 

[GrapesofRath]

https://www.aamc.org/download/434596/data/usingmcatdata2016.pdf

As you can see in the data above even those with very very low stats( lower than you can probably fathom) who get into med school usually end up graduating.

In reality the standards for merely passing med school are far lower than schools average stats. Stats are as high as they are due to competition and risk aversion not due to the fact unless you have a 3.7/32 the odda of you graduating aren't extremely high. This is a big part of why policies like affirmative action and legacy based admission can continue to exist.

 

[Gryffindor20]

There are many students who must battle the tendency to procrastinate. If you can just grit your teeth, buckle down, and do what you need to do, then you'll be fine. If not, well, then you should probably find another career. It's all a matter of how badly you want it and how self-disciplined you can resolve to be.

 

[WedgeDawg]

I was an enormous procrastinator in college and high school. I have many others who were in my class as well. People adapt. You have to change your study habits, but the environment is conducive to that and it's more likely than not that you will be able to keep up with the flow.

 

[Goro]

Nope. Poor work ethic in my students usually means dismissal in the first year, or, if they somehow make it to the end of year II, failing boards and then getting dismissed.

These are actually a minority of our troublesome students. The vast majority who have academic issues have mental health issues. Some have poor life coping skills.

A few have poor time mgt skills, but these usually adapt and recover.

Fortunately, you can get help for this. Start by going to your school's learning or education center, and more importantly, to your school's counseling center.

Are there many stories of students like me who have succeeded in medical school?

 

[777137]

Donald Trump is Gonna Make Med School Admissions Great Again

You just made my day

 

[ATPsynthase123]

Donald Trump is Gonna Make Med School Admissions Great Again

He's going to build the wall to keep the filthy DOs out of the residency match.


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[777137]

He's going to build the wall to keep the filthy DOs out of the residency match.


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You mean the carribs and he's going to make them pay for it, too

 

[ATPsynthase123]

You mean the carribs and he's going to make them pay for it, too

I really don't know how someone could apply to a Caribbean school when they know well and good that the are basically becoming a pre-med meme.


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[777137]

I really don't know how someone could apply to a Caribbean school when they know well and good that the are basically becoming a pre-med meme.


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Well if I hadn't come to this website, if it had came down to it, I might have. I just don't think people know about the dangers. You have to remember, there is maybe 25% of premeds on here max.

 

[JustaDO]

If due to poor work ethic, not so much drop out, but more so failed out.

 

[Sardinia]

@cantcatchme It's impossible to appropriately decide whether any prospective anxiety is warranted given the little information you provided. Due to the fact that nothing in life can serve as an accurate assessment of the entire medical school experience, it's up to you to address your current faults and to make an attempt to develop a new mentality or create new tools in order to overcome what you deem to be an obstacle.

 

[Goro]

As an aside, this can be explained by:

• weak research skills (these kids simply don't look before they leap)
• bad judgment, high risk behavior (they look, but leap anyway)
• bad advice
• egotism (we see this a lot in these forums...the posters think they're the special snowflake who will survive the culling and score 250 on USMLE)
• gullibility (they fall for the sales pitches, or have trouble understanding what "poor match rate" means)
• overbearing parents,
• inability to delay gratification,

We now return you to your regularly scheduled SDN thread.

I really don't know how someone could apply to a Caribbean school when they know well and good that the are basically becoming a pre-med meme.

 

[hmockingbird]

I was a huge procrastinator in college too and I did get better in med school... to an extent, as I still feel like this is my personality. It's never been an issue for me in that I never had missed/late assignments or anything like that, I always knew when to start something to get it done in college.

You do need to figure out a time management strategy that works for you. It might not be the traditional strategy (personally I feel like mine is more suited towards my natural procrastination tendencies). I feel like the amount of work was naturally motivating b/c it's overwhelming lol.

For me the things that worked were:
-setting artificial deadlines for everything/anything, that way I would give myself a hard date it needs to be done by (e.g. bills, or steps in my research project). I knew myself and set this up so that the "deadline" would get things done early/on time b/c I knew I would not start working on it too far away from the "deadline" lol
-cluster studying. My school recorded lectures so if I did not go to lecture (depended on my mood/if friends were going), I would spend 3-4 days a week reviewing all of them at once at 1.5 speed. I also studied on Sundays pretty much every weekend (if a test was coming up I studied all weekend). I preferred (and knew this due to my past habits) to spend more dedicated time studying all at once and having a larger chunk of time off, and then having my weekend time off first before studying, rather than studying a little every single day. Obviously this is going to depend on what works for your learning style too.
-strict Google calendar for dedicated study periods
-Bring study materials to clinic/hospital during 3rd/4th year as I was much more likely to study on downtime there than get home and decide I wanted to study haha
-I also like checklists

I do know someone in my med school who had to repeat a year for what seemed to be essentially major issues with time management and prioritization. IMO, you need to treat med school like a job and a job that is a big priority in your life. It may be a "work at home, create your own schedule" type of job during M1/M2, but it's still a job. If you feel like you are not able to stay on track with a schedule, your school should have resources like a learning/career specialist, counselor, tutoring, even talking to older students that you can take advantage of to help before this starts to affect your grade too much.