Had to repeat a part of med school. any effect on matching?

[francois]

Hi,

I'm an american IMG and planning to apply in the match of 2012. I have completed my step 1 with 253/99 score and done with step 2 cs. have 4 months of clinical experience(hands on) with 3 decent LORs. I'll be giving step 2 ck in a couple of months.

Now here's the question-
I had failed a part of my medical school abroad and I had to repeat the exam which I cleared immediately in the next attempt.

Will this affect my residency selection???(although I had failed a subject that was different from the field I'm interested in applying for residency)
I'm very concerned about this. I keep getting nightmares of getting rejected and not matching anywhere ( Someone please help.

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[DrBowtie]

What specialty are you applying for?

 

[francois]

Internal medicine.

 

[sideways]

I think you'll get in somewhere. Just apply intelligently.

 

[francois]

hi. thanks thats encouraging but could you elaborate?

I mean my performance was affected due to my poor health condition while taking the exam that I had failed, during med school.

 

[sideways]

No one's going to give a **** why you failed. You failed, that's all that's relevant. Given that you're an IMG, that poses greater problems. But I don't think it's the end of the world. I'd scratch any University programs off your list. Throw a couple on for good measure I guess, but you're probably not going to get any love.

When I say apply smartly, I mean: apply to a ****load of community programs.

 

[putyou2sleep]

Don't listen to that jerk.

It will affect you, but the question remains how much. Your step 1 should get you past the screening for internal medicine, and then you get a chance to explain yourself. Programs DO CARE about why, and if they think the reason for a failure is reasonable, and fits with the rest of your body of work, then they often will throw it aside and compare based on other factors.

The biggest factor you have going against you is the fact that you're an IMG, not that you failed one course, with reasonable cause and immediate remediation.

 

[cpants]

You should be fine. Just apply wisely. A university program isn't necessarily out of the question, but have reasonable expectations. You should include mostly lower tier academic institutions and community programs on your application list. The failure may hurt you some places, but your excellent board scores prove that you've mastered the material. Plenty of places will look past it.

 

[BTC]

Are residency programs even going to find out? You remediated a test, that's different than remediating a course.

 

[gravitywave]

yeah, are they even going to see this on a transcript? some of them might not even READ your transcript.

you may also want to get hold of aProgDirector, a member who speaks with authority on just these kinds of issues.

 

[francois]

Thank you guys! this really helped a lot. Even though I had to remediate one course, my transcript will ultimately show it up as a pass but only at a later date.

The only place where I think it might hurt my chance is the MPSE where I'll have to specify that I had to retake a course: but I have a valid reason(poor health while taking the test) to cite for it and the chancellor(chair) of my university is willing to endorse it.