Failing a rotation

[Lifegoals]

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Hi
I’m a fourth year vet student about to graduate in May I hope. The last year we do clinical rotations and we don’t have a hospital on campus so we go to various clinics offering externships. I can say I’m a little afraid to ask for help sometimes and in hindsight I should have asked for advice on picking my rotation sites. To make a long story short I picked what some would consider harder rotations anesthesia, neurology etc. my very first rotation was anesthesia and I failed. I tried to appeal based on it being a toxic experience but that didn’t help I was told appeals are for calculation errors and there aren’t any. I was put on academic probation pending my repeat. I passed 3 other rotations immediately after urgent care, Neurology and shelter medicine. I then took my anesthesia repeat at a different site and passed it as well. However I signed up for an extra two weeks of surgery as a rotation which was at an academic site in another state. It was surgery but for orthopedic surgery. I failed again by 3 points this site was not toxic and I tried my hardest but I kind of feel like I was set up to fail with this rotation. The preceptor said I should not of been allowed to take this rotation without doing my core surgery rotation first. He was impressed that I even tried it and even more impressed with my don’t give up attitude. He made indications that my efforts were enough but in the end he decided I failed. You have to get a 70 At least from preceptor no matter what. I was and still am devastated! I’m now a nervous wreck that they will kick me out of school with two rotations left before graduation. I’d like to appeal based on extenuating circumstance but I’m not sure how that will be taken. The extenuating circumstance is I didn’t have access to the classes and notes the students that attend that school did prior and I didn’t have my core rotation prior nor was I advised I should have done that. Any advice would be appreciated. If anyone has any experience with failing two rotations and have words of encouragement please reach out.
Thanks in advance

 

[MixedAnimals77]

This is very much largely going to depend on what your individual school's policy's are regarding this. The best thing you can do imo would be to try and be as proactive as possible with your admin-reach out to them see what you can do to remediate. IMO where you are so close to graduating you're not going to "fail out of vet school". Now they may require you to repeat the rotation, which is not unreasonable. TBH I feel like appealing on not having access to their notes or classes is not going to go well. At least at my institution we had students from various schools as well that didn't take the same courses but at the end of the day the material is the material and there are books and reputable websites to find information you may have needed. If anything I think you should try and communicate with the student coordinator the need to take your core sx rotation first before being allowed to take that one. Coming from an academic institution though this seems odd that it matters core sx vs ortho rotation. I would encourage some internal reflection regarding this ortho rotation-what points were you short in-knowledge, pt care? Are there any overlapping themes between your 2 failed rotations? and work to address those on a personal level but in the meantime be as proactive with your admin as you can is my best piece of advice

 

[Lifegoals]

Hello
Thank you for taking the time to reply. We don’t have remediation and there are no clear answers to what will/could happen. It is up to the student performance committee after they review the case.

 

[Minnerbelle]

This may come off harsh but it is coming from a kind place. Your post is full of excuses when it comes to the two rotations you failed. You note a number of extraneous reason that don’t matter too much as far as passing/failing the rotation. It is pretty rare for students to fail rotations, and when they do it is because of major deficiencies. And the environment of the rotation is similar for everyone else, yet they still pass. Even if you had interpersonal issues with a rotation mate, that shouldn’t cause you to be so deficient as to fail a rotation. Failing doesn’t mean you just didn’t meet the mark of a rockstar. It means the DVM in charge felt they could not in good conscience release you into the world as a veterinarian due to said deficiencies.

If you know it’s not for a lack of effort, then what was it? I think it’s really important for you to acknowledge that, not just to complete school but to become a vet which is mostly a self-regulating profession. Both anesthesia and surgery rotations are often fast paced and require thinking ahead/multitasking with patient care, and can require technical skills. No you aren’t performing ortho surgery, but things like being able to scrub in and maintain sterility. If you are going to stand before a promotions committee, I would be very clear about what went wrong on your end, and how you can remedy that. I wouldn’t count on the “if I completed my core sx rotation I would have been fine” rhetoric. Take some accountability.

I doubt a school will fail you out this late in the game, but they may delay your graduation date in order for you to remediate unless you have been on the cusp for a long time.

 

[Minnerbelle]

Hello
Thank you for taking the time to reply. We don’t have remediation and there are no clear answers to what will/could happen. It is up to the student performance committee after they review the case.

What do you mean there’s no remediation? Didn’t you say you made up the anesthesia rotation?

Do you have a student handbook? What does it say about failing rotations and student promotion?

 

[Minnerbelle]

Also do you have a trusted faculty mentor who knows you well and believes in you and can bat for you? If you do, lean in on that and request a meeting and seek guidance. They will understand the system you’re in and may be able to help you.

 

[Lifegoals]

Thank you for your input. I do have an appointment with my advisor as well.

 

[Lifegoals]

Remediation is not offered in year 4. I’ve read the handbook if you’re lucky they will let you repeat it. The difference being remediation is focused on your area of difficulty while repeating is exactly that repeating the entire rotation and it going on your transcript as no credit.

 

[supershorty]

I’d like to appeal based on extenuating circumstance but I’m not sure how that will be taken. The extenuating circumstance is I didn’t have access to the classes and notes the students that attend that school did prior and I didn’t have my core rotation prior nor was I advised I should have done that.

I would not consider this extenuating circumstances. Your curriculum covered the same material, even if it was presented differently and by a different person.

The real question that you need to be asking yourself is why you failed these rotations. Your posts have many excuses for why you think you failed, but you aren't really taking any accountability in them. That matters because if you're going to try and get permission to repeat rotations, you need to understand what you did that made you be insufficient.

I grade students biweekly as part of my job, and we do not take the decision to fail a student lightly. As was said above, failure indicates that there is a concern that you lack the knowledge, skills, or both, to safely practice as a veterinarian. Did you get mid-rotation feedback, or ask for it? What was the feedback you got at the end of these rotations about what you needed to improve on? These things are going to matter because if you're trying to get permission to repeat, you need to be able to tell your program what you're going to do differently to succeed this time. Saying "having access to the course material" or "having a surgery rotation under my belt" is not a real answer. What strategies are you going to implement to address your deficiencies?

 

[pp9]

Hi
I’m a fourth year vet student about to graduate in May I hope. The last year we do clinical rotations and we don’t have a hospital on campus so we go to various clinics offering externships. I can say I’m a little afraid to ask for help sometimes and in hindsight I should have asked for advice on picking my rotation sites. To make a long story short I picked what some would consider harder rotations anesthesia, neurology etc. my very first rotation was anesthesia and I failed. I tried to appeal based on it being a toxic experience but that didn’t help I was told appeals are for calculation errors and there aren’t any. I was put on academic probation pending my repeat. I passed 3 other rotations immediately after urgent care, Neurology and shelter medicine. I then took my anesthesia repeat at a different site and passed it as well. However I signed up for an extra two weeks of surgery as a rotation which was at an academic site in another state. It was surgery but for orthopedic surgery. I failed again by 3 points this site was not toxic and I tried my hardest but I kind of feel like I was set up to fail with this rotation. The preceptor said I should not of been allowed to take this rotation without doing my core surgery rotation first. He was impressed that I even tried it and even more impressed with my don’t give up attitude. He made indications that my efforts were enough but in the end he decided I failed. You have to get a 70 At least from preceptor no matter what. I was and still am devastated! I’m now a nervous wreck that they will kick me out of school with two rotations left before graduation. I’d like to appeal based on extenuating circumstance but I’m not sure how that will be taken. The extenuating circumstance is I didn’t have access to the classes and notes the students that attend that school did prior and I didn’t have my core rotation prior nor was I advised I should have done that. Any advice would be appreciated. If anyone has any experience with failing two rotations and have words of encouragement please reach out.
Thanks in advance

Without specific detail as to what knowledge you were lacking for the surgery rotation and the cited reason for failing the anesthesia rotation, it's hard to know if your concerns are valid or not. You bring up a toxic environment as a reason you should be able to get a pass for the anesthesia rotation - I get the sense that we're not going to hear the full story on this one for a reason. But if you're up for some honest, genuine feedback, you need to provide honest details. I'd say your post here is a red flag for lack of self awareness - you're basically saying that it's not your fault you didn't pass (not one, but two rotations), even though chances are high that you were the only one that failed that rotation.

Everyone who has ever gone through vet school has approached a clinical rotation as 'their first time' with just class lectures as their foundation. So you saying that you didn't have access to materials to help you is simply not true. If you are going to an accredited school, you were in the same boat as all of us as we went through our first surgery or anesthesia rotations. You don't have to have gone to the same school to be able to succeed on their clinic floor.

Some tough love: As shorty alluded to, failing grades are not easy to come by during clinics. It's actually fairly difficult to fail a rotation if you show up and do what you're supposed to do. Generally speaking, in order to fail a rotation you have to 1) not show up/be very unreliable with your duties 2) know absolutely nothing, and show no improvement in that over the course of the rotation 3) do something to put a patient or person in serious harm's way/show some really serious lack of judgment 4) do something unethical or illegal 5) be a spectacularly difficult person to work with, in terms of personality and work ethic. Time to self-reflect and decide which of those apply to you. I can provide examples of each situation from people's stories (and yes, some were rightfully dismissed from school during their last year over their actions). I can also give you examples of situations where you'd think the student would be failed, and they were passed, which speaks to how poor your performance usually has to be to result in a failing grade.

Fail my lab animal rotation right before residency application starts. Read through this thread for some more takes on rotation failing.