Getting "P's" all year long

[Tool_fan]

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p's all year. waht to do

 

[Long Dong]

I am frustrated beyond belief with how hard I am working and despite some decent written evaluations and test scores, that Im just getting P's all over my transcript. 1.) Is anyone else in this boat and can share their experiences and 2.) I dont give a flying *&% about AOA, I just want to know straight up how important clinical grades are when applying. Thank you in advance

I've been told by my research mentor they (clinical grades) are more important then step 1. 🙁 And i like you my friend seem to be destined for Ps all of third year. 👎 No matter how hard I work that 1 time I show up late or leave early I well forever then be seen as a slacker. After knowing your patient inside and out, that one time ortho saw your patient and put their note in the wrong place so you couldn't find it in the chart, you tell your attending Pt hasn't been seen by ortho yet, you'll forever be seen as a slacker who didn't really read what happend over night on you Pt. No matter how large your knowledge bais is, if you don't happen to know that one pimp question asked by your attending early on your rotation, you well seem like an idiot the rest of the time while on that service. I feel your frustration bro.

 

[njbmd]

Hi there,
My school weighted the shelf exam more than the clinical grade for third year so you could actually ace the shelf and pass the clinical but end up with honors in the clerkship. Of course the downside was that we had to score 10% higher than the national average on the shelf exam to pass the exam and above 90% for Honors. Still, the clinical grades would not kill you since they are pretty subjective.

njbmd 🙂

 

[IlianaSedai]

I'm still a MS4, so I don't have the post-match hindsight.... But at my school we don't have "high pass" at all, only P or H. And I got all P's in everything except the specialty I was going into (where I got H times three for one home and two aways).

This hasn't seemed to have affected the number of invitations I got to highly respected residency programs. I'm swimming in interviews.

In my experience, it's hard NOT to get a high pass in the specialty you end up choosing to go into -- even if, like me, you had no idea you wanted to do it. If it's for you, you'll "get" it and it will click, and you'll do well in it, and people will remember you no matter what grade you get. Also, don't forget you will have plenty of opportunity to do sub-internships, aways, etc even if you didn't get the top grade the first time.

I may get asked about my "sub-par" (read: average to above average), all P grades by a couple of top-tier residency programs, and I don't know where I'll end up come March -- but in most cases my P's don't seem to have affected the number of interviews I've been offered.

Don't sweat those P's. Just do your best, ask good questions to the people who evaluate you, READ A LOT, and let them know you're reading. 😎 Don't waste your time or effort chasing up labs or playing "beat the intern" beyond reason -- I think your curiosity and voraciousness for reading goes much further than how fast you can scut around.

 

[Zuwie]

Have you done psych yet? From my experience, the residents and attendings in the psych rotation are super nice and understanding (as they should be, since they are dealing with mental patients). I got stuck in traffic and was late for the first day orientation and did not meet the course coordinator until later in the week. That coordinator still gave me an outstanding evaluation. Besides, you have plenty of time to study for the exam, so you can pull up your grade that way.

 

[Sebastian.]

.

 

[Entei]

Ka-bumping this from the dead because I've got something to get off my chest.

I poured my heart and soul into my first rotation, which surprisingly wound up being my dream specialty. Out of H/P/F, I earned a P because I only beat our class' mean shelf grade by 3 points... despite the overwhelmingly positive comments and the fact that the shelf is supposedly worth only 10% of our grade.

C'est la vie. Now I don't even bother to check in at the dean's office to see my final grades. I figure that as long as I don't get a notice in the mail saying I failed, everything's okie dokie.

Let's hear it for third year. 🙄

 

[allylz]

ok, so i'm not getting p's all year. in fact, i'm in the opposite situation. all i have to do is show up for a rotation, and i get an outstanding evaluation. the thing is, this is subjective grading. that means that if you are the type of person who gets along with everyone, who is perky, who is always smiling, you're a hell of a lot more likely to get a good eval than if you are intelligent as hell but don't come off well to others. it's one of those things, i swear to god your 'vibe' is what gets you good evals, not your brain, not what you perceive your own level of work/knowledge on a rotation to be. and sadly, appearance plays a role too. that is the way life works. i have a good friend who has been getting screwed on every eval just because he looks like the kind of person who would be an ass. we always joke about it, but honestly i feel bad because i have 1/10 of his knowledge, and all i do is smile and i beat him gradewise. to some degree this is stuff that you can't help, because of the appearance/vibe thing and your personality is what it is. but i believe that it can be enhanced if you keep in mind that you're playing a game.

now as some people on this thread have implied, this might make me an ass-kissing jerk, or whatever. i think that's sour grapes. the ability to get along with other people, even ones you don't like, is a skill that comes more easily to some than to others. you can just write it off and say that it's living a lie, but i honestly am just a cheery person. i have enjoyed all my rotations, i like talking to patients, i like helping out residents, doing scut work doesn't bother me. i'm not faking it, but i'm consciously aware that i am 'playing the game'. this is your career, there's no one who gets hurt by you not enjoying it/playing nice with others besides yourself. am i the only one who sees the parallel here with dr. cox's character on scrubs? he's meant to be the classic example of someone who likes 'keeping it real' a little too much and is never going to get promoted. now i'm not saying you should compromise your morals or anything to get ahead, but there's something to be said for making other people happy - it's a win-win, and it's usually fairly easy to do.

that being said i feel there are two kinds of lukewarm evals. there are undeserved ones that you get because the wrong person in the department got to write your eval, even though you totally got along with another resident or attending you spent a lot of time with. maybe some of the disappointed people in this thread are just unlucky so far! i have been fortunate to be able to select who writes my evals in most cases and i only ask people who i know think i'm awesome. (hint: people who are very early in their training or just about to retire seem to be more willing to write awesome evals compared to your average, midlife attending).

anyway, this is just my long-winded way of saying that i hope grades look up for those of you who are disappointed, and not to give up and get cynical because that is just going to exacerbate the situation.

 

[beary]

I think that clinical grades are pretty arbitrary. I got all passes third year and got interview invites every place I applied for residency. I would do your best, be cheerful, study for the exam, and try not to worry about it too much. (Ironically, I have gotten 2 honors as an M4 since Dean's Letters have gone out, rotations on which I was hugely apathetic and barely studied, where I got passes on M3 rotations that I worked my butt off.)

 

[IlliniEMT1]

all together now...
what do they call the guy that got all P's in med school?

 

[RonaldColeman]

all together now...
what do they call the guy that got all P's in med school?

family practice?

 

[psychedoc2b]

all together now...
what do they call the guy that got all P's in med school?

P= physician

 

[CANES2006]

Getting honors at my school is almost impossible. Your lips have to be firmly attached to the a$$es of every resident and attending you come into contact with. That's just not my style. Got all P's during third year and still managed to get interviews at all the top places: Brigham's, Hopkins, Yale and Duke to name a few. My "subpar" clinical grades didn't come up once during my interviews. I guess class ranking, board scores, LOR's, the Dean's Letter and the rest of my application was more important.

 

[WatchingWaiting]

Getting honors at my school is almost impossible. Your lips have to be firmly attached to the a$$es of every resident and attending you come into contact with. That's just not my style. Got all P's during third year and still managed to get interviews at all the top places: Brigham's, Hopkins, Yale and Duke to name a few. My "subpar" clinical grades didn't come up once during my interviews. I guess class ranking, board scores, LOR's, the Dean's Letter and the rest of my application was more important.

How exactly could you get Ps all during third-year and then get a class ranking or Dean's letter that did not indicate you were average? Dean's' letter and class ranking are pretty dependent on your clinical grades are they not? Unless you sodomized the three or four months or the fourth-year before release of Dean's letter and those were weighted much more heavily than third-year?

 

[beary]

How exactly could you get Ps all during third-year and then get a class ranking or Dean's letter that did not indicate you were average? Dean's' letter and class ranking are pretty dependent on your clinical grades are they not?

I got all Ps during my third year rotations and my dean's letter seemed to indicate that I was an above average applicant (obviously I only saw my own, so I am not sure about this). My school puts all the comments from evals in the letter, and I actually had very positive comments even though I had all Ps. So I thought it looked fine.

 

[alina_s]

The dean who was in charge of advising and residency applications gave us this ever-so-helpful talk at the end of 3rd year in which he pretty much reinforced all out worst fears about P's on the transcript. He may have had 30 years of advising experience but it wasn't helpful or accurate. I got P's in medicine, neuro, OB, and pediatrics, which I thought would be important, but with the total randomness of the grading process, there were still highly positive comments for the dean's letter. I went into psych (H) and wrote in my personal statement that I am interested in child psych, but I got interviews at UCSF, Stanford, Harvard, and Hopkins, and nobody every asked me why I had only "passed" medicine, neuro, or peds. The grades are incredibly frustrating but try not to stress too much over them and if anyobody includes nasty comments in the evals, figure out as early as possible your school's policy about including/removing them .

 

[CANES2006]

How exactly could you get Ps all during third-year and then get a class ranking or Dean's letter that did not indicate you were average? Dean's' letter and class ranking are pretty dependent on your clinical grades are they not? Unless you sodomized the three or four months or the fourth-year before release of Dean's letter and those were weighted much more heavily than third-year?

Ranking in my class has pretty much been decided by the end of 2nd year. So few people get honors during third year that it really doesn't make a difference in terms of ranking. Those that get the honors during third year rotations were already Junior AOA. Everyone else pretty much gets average/pass, so no one moves up in the class rankings. I was already in the top 25% when I finished 2nd year. Also, for my dean's letter they just put comments, which were for the most part excellent from the attendings on the services I rotated on. They never mentioned that I just passed and didn't get honors. I guess if you read the dean's letter it would seem that I honored them when I really didn't.

 

[DrRobert]

They never mentioned that I just passed and didn't get honors. I guess if you read the dean's letter it would seem that I honored them when I really didn't.

All residency programs receive your official transcripts, which would indicate if you passed, failed, or honored each rotation.

 

[streetdoc]

I'm 3.5 rotations into 3rd year and I'm so frustrated with one of my evals that I can't seem to let it go. On my second rotation, surgery, one of the comments actually said "is ill at ease with interpersonal relations" and goes on to talk aboout how quiet I was and that he had "discussions" with me about this. I know that perception is realty in 3rd year, but this is not true. He never had "discussions" with me and all of my other evals for peds and family were praising my patient interaction skills (i don't think they ever saw me with a patien anyway!). I've tried to get over this, but I worry it will show up in my Dean's letter. Any suggestions? Should I talk to our rotation coordinator about how I feel this could be for another student that was on my rotation? They always called me the wrong name or "hey you" anyway. ARGH!!!! Some advise please!
Thanks,
streetdoc

 

[CANES2006]

All residency programs receive your official transcripts, which would indicate if you passed, failed, or honored each rotation.

Really?!! Thanks for the heads up. I wouldn't have known that. 🙄 They give you a numerical number only in my school transcript. No mention of pass or honors, although you are notified individually if you honored a rotation. So, if you passed with a high numerical number in a rotation it would give the impression that you honored a class even though you did not receive the honors because you weren't the top 5% of scores. Kind of deceptive, but it worked to my advantage. 😀

 

[labangel]

I'm 3.5 rotations into 3rd year and I'm so frustrated with one of my evals that I can't seem to let it go. On my second rotation, surgery, one of the comments actually said "is ill at ease with interpersonal relations" and goes on to talk aboout how quiet I was and that he had "discussions" with me about this. I know that perception is realty in 3rd year, but this is not true. He never had "discussions" with me and all of my other evals for peds and family were praising my patient interaction skills (i don't think they ever saw me with a patien anyway!). I've tried to get over this, but I worry it will show up in my Dean's letter. Any suggestions? Should I talk to our rotation coordinator about how I feel this could be for another student that was on my rotation? They always called me the wrong name or "hey you" anyway. ARGH!!!! Some advise please!
Thanks,
streetdoc

I would definitely find out the steps to seeing if it could be removed. I had a friend with a similar problem and like I told her, you have nothing to lose by trying. I would call your school's student affairs office to see what steps you have to go through. At my school at least, they'll consider removing a negative comment if there is no other mention of it on any other rotations.