How Screwed Am I?

[scarletfire1234]

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Hi all,

I am a DO student and I plan on going into Psychiatry but I failed my OB/GYN rotation, specifically the rotation portion. I passed the shelf exam.

I had internal medicine and psychiatry as my first two rotations, liked them both, did well, and knew from then on I was going to go into one of these fields. After more thought, I've concluded Psychiatry is the field I will enjoy most. Anyhow, I wrongly went into the OB/GYN rotation, thinking this, and did not take the rotation very seriously. I showed up, did what was asked of me, and passed the test. I know now that this is not sufficient. I realize this is 99% my fault, however my only explanations are the following:

1. Expectation were never communicated to me. During the 2nd to last week of the rotation, the director met with me, voiced his concerns, did not inform me of expectations (in retrospect, I should have asked!!!) and we went forward. I continued to show up and did what was asked of me. The only slip up after this was that 2 days before the shelf exam, I did not go to a C-section or attended a delivery (which no one told me was going on). My reason for not going to the C-section (the 10th one I would have seen) is that I was studying for the test, which I was freaked out about because at our meeting, the director said "I don't know if you will pass this test."

2. I live above 40 degrees latitude and now clearly understand that I get Seasonal Affective Disorder to a significant degree. The rotation occurred between the end of December and until the beginning of February. Other circumstances (e.g, limited social life, very small town I am in, being very far from home) do not help this at all. After more research, I know I either have Bipolar Type II or Cyclothymic disorder. I guess it's true, the people who are affected by mental disorders, are attracted to psychiatry (I see nothing wrong with this--I know people who have had leukemia who are very interested in going into heme/onc. This makes perfect sense to me).

• My mental state at the time certainly did not help my performance at all. I was depressed and VERY unmotivated to do anything. I would have sought help, however I thought my feelings were due to getting off of chewing tobacco, AND I had no anxieties because I thought I was doing what was expected of me. If concerns, and the depth of them, were expressed to me earlier, I would have gotten very anxious, changed my performance significantly and most likely would have passed the rotation.

Additional information. I passed step 1 and level 1 with scores above the Psychiatry average. This is the first problem I've had in medical school.

So, how poorly do you think this will affect residency applications? I realize I am going have to explain this, and I read on this forum that it is NOT a good idea to cite mental health issues. Could I just cite "health issues?" I feel I would probably have to explain this further.

I appreciate all of your help. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Scarletfire1234

PS. I apologize for any typos. I re-read this a couple of times, but was distraught while writing it.

 

[deleted452516]

Sorry you are having to go through this, OB-GYN was hard for me too.

Regarding your academic concerns, I hope there is some guidance you can get from a trusted advisor at your school on how to proceed.

For your mental health concerns, you should seek out psychiatric treatment and support. People who have had leukemia did not self diagnose or treat themselves, you really need to have a doctor to help figure out what is going on, and how to address it best.

As far as residency applications, hopefully in working on the above two will make it clearer what to do and say when it comes up.

 

[clausewitz2]

So, OP, I am curious: apart from missing one procedure, what did you do that got you sufficiently bad evals to fail ob/gyn? I suspect your ability to answer that question will be predictive of how successful you will be moving beyond this.

 

[sunlioness]

1. Please don't self diagnose. If you're worried you have a mental illness, consult a professional.

2. Students generally don't fail rotations when they show up and do what's asked of them aside from missing one procedure they weren't told about. You may not have gotten honors not going above and beyond, but if you completed what was required that should've been a solid pass. So what happened? What specifically did the course director have concerns about?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[scarletfire1234]

So, OP, I am curious: apart from missing one procedure, what did you do that got you sufficiently bad evals to fail ob/gyn? I suspect your ability to answer that question will be predictive of how successful you will be moving beyond this.

1. I missed 1 day due to being sick. I emailed an associate of student education at the hospital I am at because this is who I thought it would be best to contact. After the meeting, I learned that I should have contacted the office directly. I was unaware of this at the time I sent this email.

2. I left one day from the outpatient office without telling anyone because not many doctors were around and I thought no one would notice. Dumb of me.

3. I came in on a Sunday to round with the head OB, where he reported I was unengaged and disinterested. He offered me no opportunity to go see patients on my on. In retrospect I should have insisted I do this. I thought basically shadowing him would be sufficient.

3. This could be the kicker. After the rotation ended, I emailed the head OB this letter. Let me inform you that one time I was sitting with him late at night in the call room, he started showing me all these pictures on his iPad of concerts he'd been to, food he made, pictures of his pets, his wife's kid, and bottles of fancy booze (he also made frequent comments to other staff about drinking after a long weeks work.) He was interacting with me like a friend, for a lack of a better term. This is why I strongly felt he would understand where I was coming from in this email. After talking to a psych resident I am friends with, he informed me to NEVER tell senior physicians about problems you are having as excuses for poor work.

Dear Dr. ____,

I'd like to thank you again for arranging that meeting with Dr.
*Head of Medical Student Education at the Hospital I am at*, in which you genuinely expressed your concern for my learning
and progress. I think it's good that you're the head of OB/GYN
education, and I learned the most from working with you directly. In
writing my evaluation I ask that you please consider a few things that
can explain my ostensible lack of enthusiasm towards OB:

1) I'm pretty sure I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, and just
ordered a light-box and have begun making exercise a top priority to
improve my mood. And please forgive if this is to much information--I
reveal this to you because you seem like a man that would
understand--but the lack of intelligent, attractive and single women
within my age group in *town* is virtually non-existence, and has left
me frustrated in a particular way, leading to a rather dull life outside
of medicine.

2) I tell you this because you empathetically shared your experience
with quitting smoking with a pregnant patient. I am actively weening
myself from chewing tobacco, which has carried extremely unpleasant
emotional, cognitive and gastrointestinal consequences. I picked up
this habit while studying for boards and need to quit for my own health
and before life becomes more difficult (ie., 4th year and residency).

I regret that these were the conditions under which I completed my
OB/GYN rotation.

3) One of the things that I disliked about OB/GYN was the extremely
limited autonomy and opportunity to interact with patients on a
one-to-one basis. I realize this is a unique specialty where the
majority of the patients would feel uncomfortable with a male medical
student unaccompanied by an attending, and so this is not likely to be
feasible, however after completing IM and Psychiatry rotations where I
had ample opportunities to converse with and learn from patients, this
rotation felt more like shadowing where I was passive, and thus,
disengaged. This in combination with points 1) and 2) adversely
affected my experience. To note, I did appreciate how you, Joanne and
Dr. ____ would send us into the room first for OB visits.

I'd like to reiterate my gratitude for your concern for students and
hope that you are not entirely convinced that I am a poor medical
student. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Scarletfire1234

​

 

[cookymonster]

Don't bring up "health issues" or anything that could cast doubt on your ability to perform a grueling job for four years. The most important "ability" to be a successful resident is availability.

Also, if there's any hint of the externalizing language you use in your post, you're really going to turn people off. You may not have felt your faculty support and instruction was sufficient on that rotation, but there's very little hand-holding in residency, and you have to rely much more on intuition and be proactive in seeking feedback. Did you really think that any residents or attendings were going to page you from the library when a new case came in? If so, you'll get a quick reality check in residency. Most residents are too preoccupied with learning how to keep their patients alive, getting their work done, and passing their exams than making sure the med students have an ideal rotation.

A good buzzword to use when explaining your failure is how it helped you improve your "professionalism." In many contexts, it's a load of tripe that perpetuates the paternalistic aspects of residency training, but faculty and PD's will absolutely love to hear you wax poetic on it in your interviews.

 

[scarletfire1234]

1. Please don't self diagnose. If you're worried you have a mental illness, consult a professional.

2. Students generally don't fail rotations when they show up and do what's asked of them aside from missing one procedure they weren't told about. You may not have gotten honors not going above and beyond, but if you completed what was required that should've been a solid pass. So what happened? What specifically did the course director have concerns about?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

His concerns were about my 3 absences from the outpatient office and poor patient presentations I gave him one day, leading him to believe I may not pass the test. For one of these absences, I emailed the wrong person (I didn't know I should have emailed the office--I didn't even have their email--so I emailed an associate of student education at our hospital about it. Another time I left midday, after asking the OB I was working with if I could leave. I asked because 1) I felt like crap and 2) She said that she knew the rest of her patients were not comfortable with a student coming in. The 3rd absence was poor form by me. I left because I didn't feel well and thought no one would notice because the office was hectic and few OBs were around. I didn't tell anyone about this one. The next time I worked with him, my presentations were solid, and I missed the C-section because I was more concerned about studying for my test.

 

[scarletfire1234]

Don't bring up "health issues" or anything that could cast doubt on your ability to perform a grueling job for four years. The most important "ability" to be a successful resident is availability.

A good buzzword to use when explaining your failure is how it helped you improve your "professionalism." In many contexts, it's a load of tripe that perpetuates the paternalistic aspects of residency training, but faculty and PD's will absolutely love to hear you wax poetic on it in your interviews.

Thanks for the advice. Do you have any suggestions on how I can otherwise explain this? And for the later part of what I've quoted from you, could you please elaborate. I do not quite understand. Thanks

 

[Armadillos]

1) I'm pretty sure I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, and just
ordered a light-box and have begun making exercise a top priority to
improve my mood. And please forgive if this is to much information--I
reveal this to you because you seem like a man that would
understand--but the lack of intelligent, attractive and single women
within my age group in *town* is virtually non-existence, and has left
me frustrated in a particular way, leading to a rather dull life outside
of medicine.

2) I tell you this because you empathetically shared your experience
with quitting smoking with a pregnant patient. I am actively weening
myself from chewing tobacco, which has carried extremely unpleasant
emotional, cognitive and gastrointestinal consequences. I picked up
this habit while studying for boards and need to quit for my own health
and before life becomes more difficult (ie., 4th year and residency).

I regret that these were the conditions under which I completed my
OB/GYN rotation.

3) One of the things that I disliked about OB/GYN was the extremely
limited autonomy and opportunity to interact with patients on a
one-to-one basis. I realize this is a unique specialty where the
majority of the patients would feel uncomfortable with a male medical
student unaccompanied by an attending, and so this is not likely to be
feasible, however after completing IM and Psychiatry rotations where I
had ample opportunities to converse with and learn from patients, this
rotation felt more like shadowing where I was passive, and thus,
disengaged. This in combination with points 1) and 2) adversely
affected my experience. To note, I did appreciate how you, Joanne and
Dr. ____ would send us into the room first for OB visits.

I'd like to reiterate my gratitude for your concern for students and
hope that you are not entirely convinced that I am a poor medical
student.

​

Is this a joke? If you actually sent this letter to any attending, let alone to the chair of a department I would say you are lucky to still be in medschool. My personal favorite part is your poor performance being due to the lack of attractive women in town and then wondering why no OB wanted you to see their patients.

 

[nancysinatra]

Hey Scarletfire,

Don't despair. All you did was fail OB. There are practicing psychiatrists who have failed much more than that.

Now, if I follow you correctly, you actually SENT that email to the OB medical student rotation director? Yeah, that's probably why you failed. The best advice I can give you is to move on, learn from your mistakes, and NEVER send an email like that again.

Especially don't talk about light lamps or chewing tobacco. Other people on here will tell you that it's the section about sexual frustrations that's the problem. I disagree. OB is full of surgeons et al who might actually kind of sympathize with what you're saying there. You work all the time, and can't meet anyone. Ok fine. But don't put it in writing, and don't self diagnose yourself with psychiatric problems while doing so.

I also understand that you probably got really worried after the OB guy told you you seemed "unengaged and disinterested." But guess what: most med students probably seem "unengaged and disinterested" when asked to watch their 10th C-section. You need to know that whenever you get criticism in medicine - 90% of the time, it is meaningless. Many attendings and upper levels are overworked and have poor social skills and they take it out on the person below them. Go home and forget about it. Do your best the next day. Live with the fact that this profession is defined by hypocrisy and self-interest.

And I get it that the OB guy was showing you all this personal stuff. That doesn't make him your friend. In the future, don't mention personal problems to supervisors during your training, ok? Not whether it's psychiatry or any other field. If a supervisor tells you personal stuff, have pity on them. It means they aren't following their own rules.

The thing about calling in sick to the wrong office - yeah, my medical school was the same. They would give out the wrong number. Or they would tell us to email and then complain that we didn't "call" instead. I suspect that almost all of that stuff is on purpose. They want to bolster their match statistics, and culling the seemingly weak is how some of them do it. So they give you a wrong number, and you call it, and then later you take the blame upon yourself - and they see a sucker/weakling. Don't fall for that again. Put things in writing and keep track. And when you are sick, call every member of the administration from the head of the school to the lowliest secretary, and keep a recording of your message.

Another word to the wise: don't ever self-diagnose. And for the love of god, don't put it in writing. For all you know, you don't HAVE a mental health condition. But now, you've connected yourself with "bipolar disorder." Do you know how many jobs you cannot get in this country (especially with the federal government or military) if you actually have bipolar disorder? Do you know how OVERdiagnosed this condition is? Why would you rule yourself out of lots of jobs by self diagnosing with it in writing?

Finally, if all you did was fail OB/Gyn, and all else is fine, you will not only get into a psych residency - you can even still get into a good one. You may have to explain - but not much more. Keep your explanation brief, and boring. And don't email.

 

[nancysinatra]

Is this a joke? If you actually sent this letter to any attending, let alone to the chair of a department I would say you are lucky to still be in medschool. My personal favorite part is your poor performance being due to the lack of attractive women in town and then wondering why no OB wanted you to see their patients.

I disagree. This person can easily stay in med school. There's nothing wrong with his letter aside from the fact that it is excruciatingly naive. The criticism about not being able to see patients one on one during the OB rotation is probably something that the head of OB doesn't want to have passed on to the general administration - so, the letter probably won't go any further.

 

[nancysinatra]

Don't bring up "health issues" or anything that could cast doubt on your ability to perform a grueling job for four years. The most important "ability" to be a successful resident is availability.

Also, if there's any hint of the externalizing language you use in your post, you're really going to turn people off. You may not have felt your faculty support and instruction was sufficient on that rotation, but there's very little hand-holding in residency, and you have to rely much more on intuition and be proactive in seeking feedback. Did you really think that any residents or attendings were going to page you from the library when a new case came in? If so, you'll get a quick reality check in residency. Most residents are too preoccupied with learning how to keep their patients alive, getting their work done, and passing their exams than making sure the med students have an ideal rotation.

A good buzzword to use when explaining your failure is how it helped you improve your "professionalism." In many contexts, it's a load of tripe that perpetuates the paternalistic aspects of residency training, but faculty and PD's will absolutely love to hear you wax poetic on it in your interviews.

By "health issues" I think you mean: "psychiatric issues." Please be specific about this, ok? If the OP wrote some letter saying he'd had a case of childhood leukemia that suddenly came roaring back, the sympathy would be overflowing, in a way it would not for his revelation of emotional problems.

I disagree that there is very little hand holding in residency. Residency is increasingly defined by ludicrous rules from the ACGME requiring attending supervision over the most mundane matters. And believe me, you will get tons of meaningless feedback whether you "seek" it or not. That's the POINT of modern residency training.

And yes, if you are the resident on call, you WILL get a call if a new patient comes in. That's what pagers are for. That's what makes call rooms with their tiny beds and stiff, hospital-laundered sheets, possible. And I don't know of a single psychiatry resident who ever "kept a patient alive." That would be a rare thing in psychiatry and worthy of a case report. Plus, the PRITE, and the psych boards, are notoriously easy to pass. I spent little time in my residency or since then on such things.

I think a better word than "professionalism" to describe a lot of the nonsense in our field would be "bunk."

 

[Armadillos]

I disagree. This person can easily stay in med school. There's nothing wrong with his letter aside from the fact that it is excruciatingly naive. The criticism about not being able to see patients one on one during the OB rotation is probably something that the head of OB doesn't want to have passed on to the general administration - so, the letter probably won't go any further.

I disagree. This person can easily stay in med school. There's nothing wrong with his letter aside from the fact that it is excruciatingly naive. The criticism about not being able to see patients one on one during the OB rotation is probably something that the head of OB doesn't want to have passed on to the general administration - so, the letter probably won't go any further.

Maybe I'm just sleep deprived and cranky from being on call, but the letter and the posters professionalism in general seems terrible to me. Seems like would be in their best interest to be completly honest about what happened with programs so they will end up at a program with a PD willing to put up with this crap. Would be much better than getting fired as an intern.

 

[birchswing]

You're obviously quite bright to be in medical school and do so well on your exams.

But to tell a professor that you didn't do well because you're horny and there are no attractive women and because you have a nicotine problem . . . well, it's either a one-time learning experience, or perhaps you have some social interaction issue that could be addressed with some type of medical evaluation. I know people aren't supposed to offer medical advice, so I won't say anymore.

People never care what your excuse is. You're either there or you're not. Always say the least possible. I've learned that "family emergency" is the socially correct phrase for when you have an unexpected absence. And if necessary, get ADA accommodations, and use your accessibility/disability office to communicate any needs. They will always write documentation that says as little as is possible for those who need the information.

 

[nancysinatra]

Maybe I'm just sleep deprived and cranky from being on call, but the letter and the posters professionalism in general seems terrible to me. Seems like would be in their best interest to be completly honest about what happened with programs so they will end up at a program with a PD willing to put up with this crap. Would be much better than getting fired as an intern.

I'm curious why you think the OP's behavior is "unprofessional?" (I agree - it's naive, stupid, whatever, but how is it "unprofessional" to ever say what one thinks is true? He didn't send the email to a PATIENT.) He also said that the OB guy sat down with him and showed him aspects of his personal life on his iPad. The OP mistakenly believed the OB guy was his friend, and revealed personal thoughts and problems to him.

If this OP had been at my med school, his absences would not have even been NOTICED. At my med school, the purpose of a med student was to stay out of the way. In the afternoons, the OB residents would actually tell us FAKE rounding locations for the next day, so that we would not find them, because the OB program was malignant, the residents were overworked, and med students did nothing but get in the way.

After I went to residency, at a different hospital, I saw that med students at my new hospital were way more involved than we had been, and were held accountable for better attendance. I became disgusted by my own med school, looking back, because I realized - if I'd spent more time on actual rotations as a med student, I might have had a better sense of which specialty was best for me. 2 years into my residency, I wrote an email to the head of education for my med school, politely complaining about how little we had been held accountable for attendance, compared to the hospital where I did my residency. That guy wrote back, saying that my med school was such a stellar place, that attendance didn't matter, and if students bailed so they could study for their boards, that was ok. This guy was the head of medical education for a top 10 med school. So, no, attendance does NOT matter.

 

[cookymonster]

By "health issues" I think you mean: "psychiatric issues." Please be specific about this, ok? If the OP wrote some letter saying he'd had a case of childhood leukemia that suddenly came roaring back, the sympathy would be overflowing, in a way it would not for his revelation of emotional problems.

I disagree that there is very little hand holding in residency. Residency is increasingly defined by ludicrous rules from the ACGME requiring attending supervision over the most mundane matters. And believe me, you will get tons of meaningless feedback whether you "seek" it or not. That's the POINT of modern residency training.

And yes, if you are the resident on call, you WILL get a call if a new patient comes in. That's what pagers are for. That's what makes call rooms with their tiny beds and stiff, hospital-laundered sheets, possible. And I don't know of a single psychiatry resident who ever "kept a patient alive." That would be a rare thing in psychiatry and worthy of a case report. Plus, the PRITE, and the psych boards, are notoriously easy to pass. I spent little time in my residency or since then on such things.

I think a better word than "professionalism" to describe a lot of the nonsense in our field would be "bunk."

People don't fail rotations because their leukemia came back with a vengeance. If it wasn't disabling enough to take a LOA, it's going to be seen as a contributing factor rather than a determining factor for poor performance that may portend the same in residency. I'd tell him the same thing if it were chronic sciatica or celiac disease. If you have to explain a medical LOA, you might as well be honest, especially if you're in remission. It doesn't work nearly as well for explaining poor performance.

My experience in residency was if I didn't ask for feedback, I got it in the online evalue reports afterward. I found much of it to be "useless" because it was usually summative rather than formative, and once I got to fourth year and cared about nothing aside from finishing residency, I just quit reading them. Maybe it's different now with the milestones. But as long as you're providing competent patient care, I found most attendings to be non-confrontational and feedback very easy to avoid.

I'm aware that residents have to be made aware when new patients hit the floor who need attention. But the expectation that that resident immediately is going to page the MS3 in the library when there's a C-section to prepare for is pretty unrealistic. Med students are out of mind once out of sight.

Likewise, the overall medical stability of our patients doesn't diminish the life-threatening nature of their illnesses. Whether our efforts do anything to prevent a single patient's death is unknowable, but what else could be the intent of all the risk-reducing measures we take with every suicidal patient?

I agree regarding the PRITE. Disagree regarding the boards, which around 15% of test takers fail. I don't see why you wouldn't study for that unless you're pretty confident in your knowledge base and test-taking abilities (or you think the exam is impossible to study for).

I also agree that most of "professionalism" is bunk. But if you're trying to sell yourself as a useful, non-disruptive cog in the residency factory, it's a language you want to speak and what attendings in academia want to hear. You're best served by treating it like an interview with the Bobs:

 

[smalltownpsych]

The email with department head made me think about some of my own professional and personal development. I learned along the way that the supervisor, girlfriend, classmate who is easiest for me to engage might be the one who is as messed up as I am. The people who have skills that I don't are often more intimidating to me, but by associating with them I am more likely to grow. I also agree that you don't want to self-diagnose and put labels out there. It might be better to just say that you did something dumb like sent an email to the department head that came out all wrong regarding your lack of enthusiasm for OB. "Stupid, I know". "Anyway, what were you telling me about your program." Gots to develop sum peeple skillz. 😎

 

[splik]

actually i would strongly discourage you from explaining this in your personal statement. save it for the interview. instead you want to be showcasing your strengths and passion for psychiatry (this would not be the case if you failed step 1 however but you haven't) presumably you had to remediate the rotation and then passed? I know of several people who have failed clerkships during medical school (typically OB/GYN actually - it's a fairly malignant specialty and not unheard of for men to fail if they fall foul of the wrong person or if they're weird).

Personally I could care less whether you failed your OB/GYN clerkship but I'd be lying if I said that failing a clerkship isn't a red flag- and btw it is MUCH worse to fail the clerkship portion than the exam. People will assume you have a personality disorder as clerkship grades are more akin to a popularity contest/dog and pony show more than anything to do with your actual clinical proficiency or knowledge. Just make sure you pass all your other rotations and do your psych away electives early if possible and get strong letters of recommendation, as well as doing as well on step 2 as possible. also make sure you complete both parts of level 2 and have your scores in by September. Your job will be to convince people that youre not a freak much more so than your medical knowledge.

thinking back, in none of the applications I have seen the past few years with clerkship failures did the applicant explain it and most of them did go on to get decent residency spots. In fact I remember someone who failed a clerkship and tanked step 1 worse than i knew was even possible and they got exactly what they wanted for residency. it may not even come up (but definitely be prepared to answer it and definitely not with something as anemic as "I didn't know the expectations" or "I have seasonal affective disorder" which will consign you to the scrap heap).

 

[thoffen]

I am going to agree with splik on the advice portion as far as getting into residency is concerned. I don't know your chances, particularly from a DO school.

Regarding everything else, you know you screwed up and have things to work on. You know that everyone in this thread is pointing out those things to work on. It is unacceptable to diagnose your own problems and to treat them. Light boxes, exercising, recognizing your sexual frustration, etc. are not bad things. They may be the things you need to avoid depressed moods, however you cannot be solely responsible for your own diagnosis and treatment.

When it comes to interfacing with the professional world, you must learn to leave the excuses out of it. You can recognize these things and learn to address them individually. However, as splik says, you are merely pointing out more liabilities to others. What you need to develop is a process to seek feedback and make changes then seek feedback some more. You need to be able to separate your view of yourself from the validity of the feedback you receive. Regardless of its accuracy, your bosses are telling you how you are viewed and how you are measured. This is the standard you need to judge yourself by.

If you cannot actively develop this personal skill, then you will not be able to responsibly care for patients on your own.

 

[scarletfire1234]

Personally I could care less whether you failed your OB/GYN clerkship but I'd be lying if I said that failing a clerkship isn't a red flag- and btw it is MUCH worse to fail the clerkship portion than the exam. People will assume you have a personality disorder as clerkship grades are more akin to a popularity contest/dog and pony show more than anything to do with your actual clinical proficiency or knowledge. Just make sure you pass all your other rotations and do your psych away electives early if possible and get strong letters of recommendation, as well as doing as well on step 2 as possible. also make sure you complete both parts of level 2 and have your scores in by September. Your job will be to convince people that youre not a freak much more so than your medical knowledge.

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.

There is no way I can get step 2 scores in by September. I won't finish my last clerkship until July 15th. Then I either:

• Take step 2 between this and July 31, and then start the repeat OB on August 1 and finish September 9th, OR

• Start the repeat OB July 18th and finish August 26th, and take step 2 at some point during the rotation.

The problem with the former is that I finish OB at an odd time of the month and I don't know if I will be able to fit a visiting rotation in somewhere.

The problem with the latter is that I'll take step 2 during a rotation, but I'm sure this has been done before and I'm confident that I could pull it off with a decent score.

Can I get your thoughts, please?

Also, how important our psych sub Is? I read on another thread that maybe doing an IM sub-I is better, as I'll be doing mostly medicine during intern year. Thanks!

 

[scarletfire1234]

OR, should I begin studying for step 2 hard now, take 2 weeks of elective time this year (last week of May and first week of July) to study my ass of for Step 2 and take it then?