How to compensate for poor clinical grades when applying to Derm?

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PremedSurvivor

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Hi everyone,

Third year at the end of clerkship year at a top-3 medical school. Did fine my preclinical years (our school is Pass/ No Pass). Have several publications, 1 in Nature (not in derm).

Unfortunately, right with the start of clerkship year I had a family medical emergency that detracted a lot from being able to invest 100% attention to clerkship year. While I generally have strong evals, my clinical grades thus far are pretty poor:
- 2 Passes, 2 High Passes (1 of which is IM)
- surgery and family medicine grades have yet to come out
- still have to take Peds & OBGYN

1) I'm devastated because I worked my butt off and am terrified that the 2 passes and High Pass (instead of Honors) in IM will doom my shot at Derm at a top program. How can I compensate for this?
2) Any tips on how to pull off an Honors in an IM sub-i? Would that help compensate? Is it ok to tell the attendings you really want to go into IM or is that unfairly biasing them?
3) Would a high step 1 score (assuming it's possible) help snag interviews at top programs?

Thanks so much in advance.

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Hi everyone,

Third year at the end of clerkship year at a top-3 medical school. Did fine my preclinical years (our school is Pass/ No Pass). Have several publications, 1 in Nature (not in derm).

Unfortunately, right with the start of clerkship year I had a family medical emergency that detracted a lot from being able to invest 100% attention to clerkship year. While I generally have strong evals, my clinical grades thus far are pretty poor:
- 2 Passes, 2 High Passes (1 of which is IM)
- surgery and family medicine grades have yet to come out
- still have to take Peds & OBGYN

1) I'm devastated because I worked my butt off and am terrified that the 2 passes and High Pass (instead of Honors) in IM will doom my shot at Derm at a top program. How can I compensate for this?
2) Any tips on how to pull off an Honors in an IM sub-i? Would that help compensate? Is it ok to tell the attendings you really want to go into IM or is that unfairly biasing them?
3) Would a high step 1 score (assuming it's possible) help snag interviews at top programs?

Thanks so much in advance.

Relax. Get a high step score. And get off your high-horse about a getting into a "top" program. Even the perfect applicants (and there are plenty) are not assured a spot anywhere much less a select few programs of their choice.

Your application is not doomed but make sure you do get a top step score. Your pub will help but like everyone apply widely and be grateful for the interviews you get. If they end up being a lot or "top" program interviews then consider yourself lucky. If they are not, well ... consider yourself lucky that you got interviews at all.


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Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone had some tips or suggestions about how I can do better third year or how I should proceed. I have a 254 on step 1 and all honors mostly for pre-clinical.

I really don't think I can do better than I am now clinically tho. I am on a graded scale school. Have racked up 2 A-'s in peds/ob, 1 H in elective ( does not count for GPA) ,1 H in neuro ( somehow I clicked with the neuro people/ they didn't mind my nerdiness and weren't politically driven). I Now have medicine,surgery, family and psych left. I suppose I will probably be at least able to get A's in family and psych, maybe H's since they are more my cup of tea. Medicine and surgery are looking like another A- situation and if I'm super unlucky B+.

This was my first week and my team is pretty disorganized. I'm usually unsure of what to do, try to help out with whatever I can. Have not had a chance to do a full H and P without getting interrupted or a SOAP note presentation. No one really cares what I do or what they're looking for. I feel like I am looking pretty average compared with my fellow student and unsure of how to excel. Should I just give up on derm at this point? Feeling really frustrated because I am trying and I care about my patients, know a lot, am always willing to help but somehow that doesn't translate to good grades.
 
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Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone had some tips or suggestions about how I can do better third year or how I should proceed. I have a 254 on step 1 and all honors mostly for pre-clinical.

I really don't think I can do better than I am now clinically tho. I am on a graded scale school. Have racked up 2 A-'s in peds/ob, 1 H in elective ( does not count for GPA) ,1 H in neuro ( somehow I clicked with the neuro people/ they didn't mind my nerdiness and weren't politically driven). I Now have medicine,surgery, family and psych left. I suppose I will probably be at least able to get A's in family and psych, maybe H's since they are more my cup of tea. Medicine and surgery are looking like another A- situation and if I'm super unlucky B+.

This was my first week and my team is pretty disorganized. I'm usually unsure of what to do, try to help out with whatever I can. Have not had a chance to do a full H and P without getting interrupted or a SOAP note presentation. No one really cares what I do or what they're looking for. I feel like I am looking pretty average compared with my fellow student and unsure of how to excel. Should I just give up on derm at this point? Feeling really frustrated because I am trying and I care about my patients, know a lot, am always willing to help but somehow that doesn't translate to good grades.

Don't give up! Third year can be brutal, especially if you feel like you need to constantly be perfect in order to match into derm. Everyone will have bad days or even weeks, but dust yourself off, and push through it.

Just pointers:

1. Never, ever, ever complain
2. Be early, be eager, and be helpful
3. Read about patients (not just in the textbooks, but pull in recent literature, too)
4. Be likable without being annoying (this is difficult)

If you're still nervous, you can always consider doing a research year between 3rd and 4th years

Good luck!
 
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Threads merged since they are so similar. Nothing brilliant I can add, can only echo the advice of the other good posts above:

- Very few people have a perfect application profile. Yes, it would be ideal to honor everything. Stop worrying about what you've done so far since you cannot change it. Figure out a way to improve and then put the plan into action.

- Find some other way to compensate for low clinical grades: a high Step 1 score, research year, PhD, etc

- Matching is matching. Unless you are one of those few people with a perfect application profile, I wouldn't worry about what's a top derm program and what isn't. Just worry about getting in.

- Try and pick up pointers from the med students who are honoring their clinical rotations. What are they doing that you aren't? This will mean pushing yourself out of your comfort zone sometimes.

- As someone who also struggled to get honors during my clinical rotations, I know how frustrating and subjective the process can be. I still matched. It could have been luck. I know the advice is easier to dispense on my side having matched, but if I could go back in time, the advice I would give to myself is to stop worrying about things you can't control. Just focus on getting better every day.
 
Threads merged since they are so similar. Nothing brilliant I can add, can only echo the advice of the other good posts above:

- Very few people have a perfect application profile. Yes, it would be ideal to honor everything. Stop worrying about what you've done so far since you cannot change it. Figure out a way to improve and then put the plan into action.

- Find some other way to compensate for low clinical grades: a high Step 1 score, research year, PhD, etc

- Matching is matching. Unless you are one of those few people with a perfect application profile, I wouldn't worry about what's a top derm program and what isn't. Just worry about getting in.

- Try and pick up pointers from the med students who are honoring their clinical rotations. What are they doing that you aren't? This will mean pushing yourself out of your comfort zone sometimes.

- As someone who also struggled to get honors during my clinical rotations, I know how frustrating and subjective the process can be. I still matched. It could have been luck. I know the advice is easier to dispense on my side having matched, but if I could go back in time, the advice I would give to myself is to stop worrying about things you can't control. Just focus on getting better every day.

Thank you so much for your honest and helpful advice. I suppose my reaction is partly from our school's "career counselor" who essentially laughed me out of her office berated me for even considering derm "with grades like these". Her suggestion, I kid you not, was to "try peds instead", as if Peds is somehow a less important specialty. She was discouraging, condescending and accusatory (thought I was BSing the family medical emergency, which was offensive as hell).
 
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