Failed a M1 course

[AnxiousStudent]

Hey guys, I'm a SDN lurker and just created an account. So I started my first year pretty rough, I had a tough time adjusting to the amount of work and failed the first course: Anatomy. I just found the class so difficult, with so much crap to memorize and I couldn't quite adjust. I just hated that class with all my guts. And my study habits sucked too, I have to admit.

But then the next three courses, Biochem, Cell Bio, Molecular Bio, I passed (our school is Pass/Fail). These courses were so freaking much better than Anatomy and I did okay in the exams for these classes. I'm pretty sure that I will be able to pass all the rest of my courses in M1.

So my question is, if I successfully remediate my fail in Anatomy, what are my outlook at some of the more competitive specialties? The transcript will show F/P, meaning I failed it the first time and successfully remediated it.
I heard the preclinical grades are not given much emphasis, and that Step 1, clinical grades, research publications, and letters are the most important.

I'm really into General Surgery and already involved in clinical research with it with a resident. We are going to publish in the next couple of months. Am I wasting my time, though, after failing a course? I heard Gen Surg is a pretty competitive field.

Thanks for your help!

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[MossPoh]

You will be fine. Just focus on passing the course. The more you stress about how every misstep may ruin your chances, the worse you will do. I struggled with anatomy. I discovered it was not because of its difficulty as much as the fact I was still trying to figure out how to study/learn.

In addition, anatomy is a class where, as painful as it is for some (including me), amount of time spent in the lab is highly correlated with performance on exams. I struggled the entire course and then the last exam block, I decided to man up and spend ungodly amounts of time there. I scheduled studying/reviews with TAs and any person who'd have me. I would get there early and pull up a different body searching for the same structures. I didn't just look at the structures and say the names over and over. I'd ask questions to myself or others with a clinical spin. Lot's of "why's" and "how's" rather than "what's". I knocked that final exam out of the park.

Overall, my first year was lackluster. I would have glimpses of greatness between the all too common times of being on the undesirable side of the curve. It took practice and refininment, but now I am doing very very well in second year.

So, is failing anatomy a kiss of death? Nope, unless you get down on yourself about it. If you work hard, efficiently and consistently the rest of your med school career then just about any speciality is for the taking.

 

[Mace1370]

Failing a class in M1 won't put you out of the running at all. It's the least relevant year to your overall competitiveness, so don't sweat it. Just study hard from now on and continue to do well.

Also, I was under the impression that General Surgery was only mildly competitive, but I'm not interested in it and haven't looked into it at all so that take with a grain of salt.

 

[OveractiveBrain]

Step 1 >>>>> Preclinical grades. Get a 230+ and you're golden. As far as competitiveness goes, Gen Surg is not high on the list (as long as you don't want the name brands of universities). OB is the thing people try when they really suck at life but want to be surgeons, but Gen Surg is the "bottom rung" when it comes to difficulty of acceptance in the surgery world (compared to Ortho/Plastics/etc).

You'll be fine.

P.S. I love OBs who do OB/Gyn for OB/Gyn, and despise the miserable humans who failed at life and are not only angry about their inability to be a surgeon, but take it out on medical students and lower levels.

 

[gravitywave]

Step 1 >>>>> Preclinical grades. Get a 230+ and you're golden. As far as competitiveness goes, Gen Surg is not high on the list (as long as you don't want the name brands of universities). OB is the thing people try when they really suck at life but want to be surgeons, but Gen Surg is the "bottom rung" when it comes to difficulty of acceptance in the surgery world (compared to Ortho/Plastics/etc).

You'll be fine.

P.S. I love OBs who do OB/Gyn for OB/Gyn, and despise the miserable humans who failed at life and are not only angry about their inability to be a surgeon, but take it out on medical students and lower levels.

at first i was like but then i read further and was like

good call on the postscript

 

[ACSurgeon]

Hey guys, I'm a SDN lurker and just created an account. So I started my first year pretty rough, I had a tough time adjusting to the amount of work and failed the first course: Anatomy. I just found the class so difficult, with so much crap to memorize and I couldn't quite adjust. I just hated that class with all my guts. And my study habits sucked too, I have to admit.

But then the next three courses, Biochem, Cell Bio, Molecular Bio, I passed (our school is Pass/Fail). These courses were so freaking much better than Anatomy and I did okay in the exams for these classes. I'm pretty sure that I will be able to pass all the rest of my courses in M1.

So my question is, if I successfully remediate my fail in Anatomy, what are my outlook at some of the more competitive specialties? The transcript will show F/P, meaning I failed it the first time and successfully remediated it.
I heard the preclinical grades are not given much emphasis, and that Step 1, clinical grades, research publications, and letters are the most important.

I'm really into General Surgery and already involved in clinical research with it with a resident. We are going to publish in the next couple of months. Am I wasting my time, though, after failing a course? I heard Gen Surg is a pretty competitive field.

Thanks for your help!

1- No one will care about this one glitch if you do well otherwise.
2- Having a published paper is NEVER a waste of your time, even if you don't do gen surg.
3- Gen surg is not terribly competitive. It's not the easiest to match into, but there are certainly plenty of spots and the overall difficulty of matching is average at best.

 

[AnxiousStudent]

Thanks guys for your insights. I guess if I do well from now on, I should be fine. So if I pass the rest of my preclinical courses, do well on the Step 1 and clinical courses, I should be okay?

I was just really worried my career had ended before it even had a chance to start.

As for Gen Surg's competitiveness, I thought it was competitive according to the Surgery Interest Group I had attended. They were saying it was a very competitive field to match into. But I guess that was just them exaggerating themselves to make themselves feel better. LOL.

 

[MossPoh]

Competiveness goes in waves and fluctuates a lot. Certain fields are consistently competitive because of the limited number of spots and/or perception of current lifestyle/money aspects, but even those are subject to change. Overall, there HAS been an upward tick in general surgery the last few years but nothing to put it in the super competitive domain. Applying to residency isn't like applying to medical school though. Med school admissions will always be competitive and a drop in applications would be a legitimate surprise. That may not be the case with certain specialties. There were times when nobody wanted to do anesthesiology, radiology or ophthalmology. As were there times when nobody wanted to do urology or orthopedics, because they wanted to be "real surgeons'. Before the creation of family medicine residencies, internal medicine was fiercly competitive and anybody who wasn't a cutter wanted it.

I've found that looking at raw numbers can be intimidating with nearly every speciality. When we see something like "average step 1 score", our mind automatically goes to having to be 5 points above that to stand a shot. We see that the average matched application had 2 published articles and we automatically assume they were hardcore research articles published in a major journal rather than a lit. review or abstract in a journal with a low impact factor. Our human nature tends to believe that everyone is a superstar. The realility is that averages are just that, averages. There were plenty of people who weren't flawless applicants that did match into their specialty, even if it is on the more competitive end. Program directors aren't stupid. They understand that humans do make mistakes and it is what they learned or how they corrected those mistakes that matters most. I've heard more than a few PDs (and med school admissions people) say that when they get that pristine application that is perfect in every way, it actually concerns them due to the old cliche, "If it is too good to be true, then it probably is."

So, summary: Everyone else said it correctly. First year grades, especially in your first semester aren't that important. Just correct that mistake and keep grinding things out. Oh, and never listen to hearsay. If in doubt, search out an objective source for the information. (SDN doesn't really count most of the time)

 

[naus]

All the surgeon wannabes at my school were super gungho about anatomy.

You sure you want to be a surgeon? You're going to be pimped on anatomy for the next decade you know...

 

[AnxiousStudent]

All the surgeon wannabes at my school were super gungho about anatomy.

You sure you want to be a surgeon? You're going to be pimped on anatomy for the next decade you know...

Haha, I know it's lame. Still, I've wanted to be a surgeon for a long time and like I said, I just couldn't quite adjust to the workload with Anatomy.

 

[Food]

I didn't think gen surgery was suuuper competitive...

 

[millepora]

With your distaste in anatomy, your choice to pursue surgery makes absolutely no sense. Surgeons have to KNOW their anatomy, it is the core knowledge of their job.

 

[Meerkatology]

pharm doens't interest me either, does that mean i can't be an internist?

anatomy is a small part of surgery.

alot of it is patient counseling and your knowledge of the disease, risks and benefits of the procedure, in order to decided whether to perform surgery or not.

the procedures themselves are usually pretty run of the mill (at least for gen surg). even if you don't like anatomy or suck at it, you're gonna know it cold when its your 1000th lap chole.

 

[naus]

pharm doens't interest me either, does that mean i can't be an internist?

anatomy is a small part of surgery.

alot of it is patient counseling and your knowledge of the disease, risks and benefits of the procedure, in order to decided whether to perform surgery or not.

the procedures themselves are usually pretty run of the mill (at least for gen surg). even if you don't like anatomy or suck at it, you're gonna know it cold when its your 1000th lap chole.

What a bunch of bull....

The hardest part of surgery is finding the damn aberrant arteries while your field of view is covered with fat and blood. You think a mediocre grasp of anatomy is going to not matter in those situations? And no, you haven't done it 1000 times.

Obviously other stuff are important too, but mastery of anatomy is a unique prereq for surgery.

 

[Meerkatology]

What a bunch of bull....

The hardest part of surgery is finding the damn aberrant arteries while your field of view is covered with fat and blood. You think a mediocre grasp of anatomy is going to not matter in those situations? And no, you haven't done it 1000 times.

Obviously other stuff are important too, but mastery of anatomy is a unique prereq for surgery.

you will need to know anatomy well eventually but im saying it will come once you start using it on a daily basis. your performance in an M1 anatomy class is not a deciding factor at all of your future mastery of anatomy.

someone who honored anatomy in M1 probably doesn't remember jack about it in M4 unless they purposely review it all the time.

for the sake of argument if you failed and remediated anatomy, effectively going over the material twice, you will probably know it better than someone who passed the 1st time.

 

[naus]

for the sake of argument if you failed and remediated anatomy, effectively going over the material twice, you will probably know it better than someone who passed the 1st time.

Passing is a pretty low bar in anatomy.

 

[Meerkatology]

Passing is a pretty low bar in anatomy.

low bar? anatomy is the most failed class in med school and difficulty of passing also varies between schools.

if you think failing anatomy in m1 means you are unfit to be a good surgeon you are one big elitist *******.

 

[adaptation1]

I've talked to most of the anatomy lab directors in my school. And they are all retired surgeons, many of whom were chiefs of surgery at famous hospitals. They openly admit they don't know much about anatomy besides the localized areas (pelvis, neck, abdomen, etc) they performed their routine surgeries. Even then, they don't know the details. The only doc who truly knows his anatomy--who is, in your words, a master of anatomy-- is one who has also has a Ph.D in anatomy.

 

[DrDrToBe]

While failing anatomy may not have that big of an impact on your chances of becoming a general surgeon, you really need to think if that's really what you want to do. I don't think there's any getting around knowing your anatomy in surgery; knowing anatomical structures and their relations is the core of a surgeon's job. Sure, when you become an attending you may only be removing gallbladders and won't care about the innervation of fibularis longus, but I heard that on your surgery rotation you get pimped on this stuff all the time, and during residency you'll be doing a variety of things anyway. I can't imagine that if you bomb your surgery rotation you will match well in a surgery residency. If you're serious about surgery, I'd suggest you try to master anatomy as best as you can.

 

[MojoRisin]

as a surgical resident who nearly failed anatomy (bombed first 2 of 3 tests, like OP just couldn't/didn't adjust to the workload) i am interested and surprised to hear how much trouble you will have with/attaining a surgical residency because of this bump in the road

i still don't particularly care for gross anatomy and i could know my anatomy better, but based on feedback my knowledge of anatomy is not hampering my training--in 5 years you'll learn the anatomy

 

[TexasDoc2388]

Thank you Mojo for bringing some experience to the debate, residency programs are not going to look at your anatomy grade and judge your prospects of being a surgeon based on that. If that was the case, there would be more of a need for surgeons then there already are. Most people in my class don't even take anatomy seriously and are always cramming the night before the test, but I'm pretty sure there are going to be some great surgeons in our class.

 

[womp]

General surgery isn't that competitive, don't sweat it.

Failing anatomy while gunning for ortho and ENT might be a different story though.

All the people I know who got into competitive surgical specialties didn't fail anatomy. In fact they honored it and were also the second year anatomy tutors. Of course there are exceptions, but if you want to go into a competitive surgical specialty, it might be wise to imitate the ones who have made it with lots of room to spare and not the one who barely squeaked by.

 

[ACSurgeon]

General surgery isn't that competitive, don't sweat it.

Failing anatomy while gunning for ortho and ENT might be a different story though.

All the people I know who got into competitive surgical specialties didn't fail anatomy. In fact they honored it and were also the second year anatomy tutors. Of course there are exceptions, but if you want to go into a competitive surgical specialty, it might be wise to imitate the ones who have made it with lots of room to spare and not the one who barely squeaked by.

I'm sure the OP didn't voluntarily fail anatomy. Most students don't plan to "barely squeak by" regardless of chosen specialty. Most students don't fail ANY course, and this is more true for those who get into competitive specialties. However, those who fail a course or even a year still have some decent opportunities depending on circumstances and other aspects of their application.

At this point, the OP has to make the best of their situation, but their arse, and do as well as they can from now until they submit their ERAS application. This one course alone will NOT determine your fate.

 

[Serotonergic]

I'm in a similar position to OP. I think I might fail our neuro/anatomy unit and I've always wanted to work with the nervous system - either as a psychiatrist, neurologist, or neurosurgeon (although I'm pretty sure a career in neurosurgery isn't realistically attainable for me). I bombed the hell out of our first round of exams because I just didn't study. I wouldn't be surprised if I got the lowest scores of the entire class. I'm just drowning in self-loathing and depression right now. I try to tell myself that even if I do end up failing, it wont be the end of the world, but I can't get myself to believe that at all! This is only the first year of a long road where things will only get harder. I'm so afraid of failing miserably and entirely in my pursuit of becoming a competent physician. It's been a terrible month for me and I'm desperately hoping to get a second wind.

 

[Another Chance]

I'm just drowning in self-loathing and depression right now. I try to tell myself that even if I do end up failing, it wont be the end of the world, but I can't get myself to believe that at all! This is only the first year of a long road where things will only get harder. I'm so afraid of failing miserably and entirely in my pursuit of becoming a competent physician. It's been a terrible month for me and I'm desperately hoping to get a second wind.

Don't. If you start hating yourself, it's only going to turn into a vicious cycle of doing poorly/hating yourself/doing worse/hating yourself worse/etc.

You need to pick yourself up and move on. Make it a challenge and knock the hell out of it. Trust me, you don't want to get into the habit of focusing on one exam or one failing grade. You'll be miserable and depressed and that will affect your future grades.

I say all this as someone who was dismissed from medical school for academic failure and got a second chance. I've been where you are with the self-loathing and the fear. It'll only make your situation worse if you don't try to move past it and start believing in yourself. You can do this!

 

[Bernoull]

Don't. If you start hating yourself, it's only going to turn into a vicious cycle of doing poorly/hating yourself/doing worse/hating yourself worse/etc.

You need to pick yourself up and move on. Make it a challenge and knock the hell out of it. Trust me, you don't want to get into the habit of focusing on one exam or one failing grade. You'll be miserable and depressed and that will affect your future grades.

I say all this as someone who was dismissed from medical school for academic failure and got a second chance. I've been where you are with the self-loathing and the fear. It'll only make your situation worse if you don't try to move past it and start believing in yourself. You can do this!

Totally agree with this! I'll add that u should talk to a counsellor especially if ur feeling down n depressed. Otherwise, u may start self-sabotaging, not caring and this just makes it harder to pick up and hit the ground again.

Keep ur head up, believe in urself and best of luck

 

[MrBeauregard]

OP,

I guess my biggest question is this: you're really into GS and already involved in clinical research, but you hated anatomy with all your guts? You found it horrible and hated every second of it, yet you want to be a surgeon and essentially surround yourself with the anatomy of the human body every single day? To me this doesn't make any sense. I also love GS and have been looking at it from day one. Our first class was anatomy and I loved every second of it, and part of the reason why was because I love surgery so much.

It just seems to me that if you are this into surgery, you should have at least liked anatomy a little bit and found it important since it's quite possibly one of the most fundamental subjects for a potential surgeon to master.

 

[MonsterHospital]

I just started med school too, and I hate anatomy and barely scraped by with a pass. I felt like my classmates were silently judging me/thinking I was dumb when they looked at me. I felt (and still feel) like I constantly have something to prove and a chip on my shoulder. This was of course silly because I go to a P/F school and nobody else knew my actual score but me, but it still sucks.

From what I gather, general surgery isn't too competitive, but I agree with the others that if you strongly dislike anatomy you may want to ask yourself if you will really enjoy surgery or not. That may be a good question for other surgical residents or surgeons you may know.

Good luck man. I'm sure things will work out in the end!