MD Failed a core clerkship clinical rotation and a shelf exam. How much of a red flag is it? Hoping to apply to Psych.

[Kanye's Psychiatrist]

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So basically, I failed the surgery shelf exam (missed the cutoff by a couple of points but ended up passing the 2nd time), and I failed my Peds rotation. It's a long story but tldr I was going through some stuff plus I had a really bad experience with one of my Peds Preceptors and they ended up writing a really bad evaluation. All my other rotations were pretty good, and I either passed or high-passed them. I have no other red flags, and I passed step 1 on the first try and I passed all my pre-clinical classes. I'm hoping to apply to psych in the coming months. I will take step 2 in about a week and I've been scoring high on the practice NBMEs so I'm hopeful it will go well. My school is in between mid and high tier (best estimate?) and I'd like to go to a T20/T30ish academic psych program or Community program either in the Midwest or West Coast. I know psych is getting more competitive every year, but how will these red flags affect me moving forward? Should I be worried? Should I dual apply? Lmk in the comments below.

 

[Goro]

Can't sugar coat this, these will hurt you.

 

[Kanye's Psychiatrist]

Can't sugar coat this, these will hurt you.

I'm planning on applying broadly to both academic and community programs across the country

 

[NotAProgDirector]

I think you're going to need to be strategic with your signals to be successful. Failing a clerkship is often a big problem. It's perhaps a bit better if your clinical performance was fine but you fail the shelf, but it sounds like you actually failed the clinical portion of peds. If you were "going through some stuff" that impacted your performance you should have taken an LOA or some other solution, but it's too late for that.

I think your chances at "T20" programs is very low. Top programs look at top candidates, which you are not. You only have a limited number of signals, and I think you needs to seriously consider focusing them on community or less competitive programs. Feel free to apply to T20 programs without a signal and hope for the best -- worst case scenario there is just wasted money. Probably also focus on Midwest, which will be less competitive (in general) than West Coast.

You definitely need a mentor to help you through this. Also, you may want to consider some targeted SubI's at programs that would be a reasonable option for you. Your S2 score may also help target programs.

And last, you need a backup plan. Either to apply to a backup specialty, a SOAP plan, and/or a gap year plan.

 

[Kanye's Psychiatrist]

I think you're going to need to be strategic with your signals to be successful. Failing a clerkship is often a big problem. It's perhaps a bit better if your clinical performance was fine but you fail the shelf, but it sounds like you actually failed the clinical portion of peds. If you were "going through some stuff" that impacted your performance you should have taken an LOA or some other solution, but it's too late for that.

I think your chances at "T20" programs is very low. Top programs look at top candidates, which you are not. You only have a limited number of signals, and I think you needs to seriously consider focusing them on community or less competitive programs. Feel free to apply to T20 programs without a signal and hope for the best -- worst case scenario there is just wasted money. Probably also focus on Midwest, which will be less competitive (in general) than West Coast.

You definitely need a mentor to help you through this. Also, you may want to consider some targeted SubI's at programs that would be a reasonable option for you. Your S2 score may also help target programs.

And last, you need a backup plan. Either to apply to a backup specialty, a SOAP plan, and/or a gap year plan.

fair enough. I had my MSPE meeting with my dean a couple of weeks back and she told me that I was good to apply, given I scored decent on step 2. She did tell me to apply broadly, tho. She only told me to dual apply if I ended up scoring low on step 2.

 

[EthylMethylMan]

Do you have a home program? If so, try to make some friends there. Do a sub-I with them and crush it. At that point hopefully they would rank you well.

Otherwise, 100% what NAPD said.