How Many Times Can You Fail A Rotation?

[Llenroc]

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Before they ask you to leave medical school?

This is prompted by a thread I saw in another section.

 

[jocg27]

Before they ask you to leave medical school?

This is prompted by a thread I saw in another section.

Not the answer you're looking for, I'm sure...but honestly it probably depends on a ton of different things...why are you failing (failing shelf, or lousy evals, or flagrantly inappropriate behavior, or something else), by how much, and your record on other rotations, courses, and tests...Not to mention intangibles like who who in administration you've previously gotten on your side or pissed off, and idiosyncrasies between different schools, some of which are probably more forgiving than others.

As a very general rule it kind of seems to be pretty hard to be truly kicked out of med school, and it would seem to be harder once you've passed two years of classes and your step 1...

I dunno if anyone else can answer with anything more concrete or more helpful...

 

[Law2Doc]

Before they ask you to leave medical school?

This is prompted by a thread I saw in another section.

That is totally up to the school -- there is no set rule. I would think all schools give you a second chance, and many would give you a third. Beyond that, you had better be very likeable, be perceived as trying hard and improving, have good reasons for coming up short, etc. As the prior poster indicated, it is the very rare person who is asked ot leave medical school at this level, but being asked to repeat exams, rotations, etc is not as uncommon.

 

[Tired]

When I was in school, you could fail based on your exam score, your clinical evals, oral exam, or any combination of the three. Generally you could retake the exam once before you actually failed the whole rotation, but that wasn't universally true. Failing based on clinical evals usually only occurred with people who had already had other "difficulties" in school.

For us, everything was individualized, and at the discretion of the Dean and clerkship director. I know of at least one student who was forced to repeat all of third year due to failing two rotations.

My school was pretty notorious for letting people continue as long as they wanted; few people were kicked out, instead they just kept failing until they quit.

 

[Llenroc]

What does it take to fail a student on clinical evals? If two people give the student above average scores, but the third fails them, do you think the department would make the student remediate the clerkship?

 

[Blade28]

Again, it's all up to the school's individual policy.