Effect of Fail on Residency spots

[James105]

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Hello,

I am an M2 at a state school. Our school is on the pass/fail system, and I just failed my first exam. I will have an opportunity to retake the exam and pass it, but the fail will show up on my transcript.

How much will this hurt my residency chances?

 

[EM4Reals]

What shows up on your final transcript is what really matters. If you retake and it shows pass instead of fail, then no harm.

On another note 3rd year grades >>>>>> Preclinical grades as far as weight in residency app.

 

[winkleweizen]

It sucks, but not a deal breaker.

 

[docB]

What shows up on your final transcript is what really matters. If you retake and it shows pass instead of fail, then no harm.

He mentioned that the fail will be there even if he retakes and passes so it sounds like he's stuck with it.

On another note 3rd year grades >>>>>> Preclinical grades as far as weight in residency app.

It sucks, but not a deal breaker.

I agree with these statements.

This will be a hurdle to overcome but it can be done. You will need to really work to get better than average grades to compensate for this. A lot of people have deficiencies in their apps. A good app can survive one or two. Unfortunately you burned yours early.

 

[peppy]

I'm in a different specialty, but I can say that at my program, Step scores (and failures) are given far more attention than pre-clinical courses are. If you do everything you can to score well on Step 1/Step 2 and do well on the clinical rotations, I think you can recover from this.

 

[Birdstrike]

Hello,

I am an M2 at a state school. Our school is on the pass/fail system, and I just failed my first exam. I will have an opportunity to retake the exam and pass it, but the fail will show up on my transcript.

How much will this hurt my residency chances?

You failed only one exam?

Boards? USMLE step?

Or just a single exam during the year?

If it's just a single exam, from one subject, I don't think it means that much, as long as you have a pattern of doing well. Everyone has an outlier once in a while.

If you ultimately do well on your final grade for that class, pass it, do well on USMLEs, clinicals, and evaluations, who cares about 1 exam?

Now, if it's a pattern: multiple failing performances will likely predict future failing performances.

My med school didn't even show individual exam results. It was pass, fail, honors for the subject as a whole.

It may be a little corny, but at times like this it is worth reading this list of failures and trying to guess which "failure" it belongs to before you get to the bottom:

Lost job, 1832
Defeated for legislature, 1832
Failed in business, 1833
Elected to legislature, 1834
Sweetheart (Ann Rutledge) died, 1835
Had nervous breakdown, 1836
Defeated for Speaker, 1838
Defeated for nomination for Congress, 1843
Elected to Congress, 1846
Lost renomination, 1848
Rejected for Land Officer, 1849
Defeated for Senate, 1854
Defeated for nomination for Vice-President, 1856
Again defeated for Senate, 1858
Elected President, 1860

- Abraham Lincoln



Think Big Picture.







(And more importantly, ace your next exam.)

 

[EMPD]

Admittedly I sometimes don't notice this before I offer an interview spot. The Dean's letter has several key questions usually listed on the first page. One is "Has the student been required to repeat any coursework? " I would not let this change my desire to interview someone if it was one course. I also might not even notice it if there is a good set of board scores and great letters.

 

[James105]

Thank ya'll for the valuable feedback. I failed the written portion of our Patient Care course. I will certainly pass during the second opportunity, but I was pretty broken up about how much I hurt my chances.

your responses give me a bit of hope.

 

[RustedFox]

Thank ya'll for the valuable feedback. I failed the written portion of our Patient Care course. I will certainly pass during the second opportunity, but I was pretty broken up about how much I hurt my chances.

your responses give me a bit of hope.

Patient care course ?

Trust me, nobody's going to give a (fu)ck.

If you'd have failed your first path exam, yeah. You gotta bounce back from that.

Some subjective patient-care-course nonsense where you're graded on whether you remember to ask about the history of scandanavian pediatric cancer in the fifth-removed relative (or at least, that's what mine was like) ? Pffft. Every PD on the planet knows how worthless those things were in the first place, and ignores them extra-hard.

 

[teacherman]

Patient care course ?

Trust me, nobody's going to give a (fu)ck.

If you'd have failed your first path exam, yeah. You gotta bounce back from that.

Some subjective patient-care-course nonsense where you're graded on whether you remember to ask about the history of scandanavian pediatric cancer in the fifth-removed relative (or at least, that's what mine was like) ? Pffft. Every PD on the planet knows how worthless those things were in the first place, and ignores them extra-hard.

👍👍