I only *passed* my Peds clerkship....am I in trouble?

[Echinoidea]

Hi everyone
I'm an MS3 about to become an MS4. After spending all of my first 2 and a hlaf years in med school convinced I wanted to do EM, I then had my Peds rotation and absolutely fell in love (ironically, I also found that I hated the ER).

My worry is that I only recieved a 'pass' on my Peds clerkship (I high-passed obgyn, surgery, & medicine) and I'm kind of worried as to how that might look when I apply to residencies this fall. I actually did get a nice LOR from my attending, but he's just the kind of person that does not hand out honors or high passes very often at all.

I know it must look odd to a program director to see that I only passed the clerkship of my desired specialty. Anyone have any input or opinions on this?

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[pinkfrosting]

Peds is not difficult to match into. Having gotten a Pass on your third year clerkship, by itself, will not prevent you from matching *somewhere*. If you do well in some peds electives during your fourth year, do well in a peds sub-i, and get great LORs, you should not have difficulty matching. Also, if you did well on your boards, that can help make up for the lower grade in peds. Now granted, you might have difficulty matching at CHOP or Boston or something (but really, most people don't match there), but there are plenty of other great peds programs that you should be able to get into. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more specifically rather than in generalities

 

[ChildNeuro]

Just curious, did your Peds clerkship director or whoever assigns grades know that you wanted to go into Peds? I told my site director about my desire/intention to do Peds, and was was told, "Well, alot of students say that they want to do Peds to get a good grade", and was given the cold shoulder the whole rotation, . . . which was kind of sad considering I was willing to come in early to see patients/hopefully learn more, I still want to do Peds, based mostly on interaction with patients and previous volunteer work with kids, and some great electives. I would suggest doing a pedi-elective, they have trouble arguing your comment when you do a sub-I or fourth year pedi-elective.

 

[jocg27]

Just curious, did your Peds clerkship director or whoever assigns grades know that you wanted to go into Peds? I told my site director about my desire/intention to do Peds, and was was told, "Well, alot of students say that they want to do Peds to get a good grade", and was given the cold shoulder the whole rotation, . . . which was kind of sad considering I was willing to come in early to see patients/hopefully learn more, I still want to do Peds, based mostly on interaction with patients and previous volunteer work with kids, and some great electives. I would suggest doing a pedi-elective, they have trouble arguing your comment when you do a sub-I or fourth year pedi-elective.

Interesting...would you suggest as a rule not specifically letting people know that you're interested? (i'll be starting third year soon...and I'd rather that not happen to me)

It seems strange though...the director would have to know that some people in the class actually want to do peds, and that some of them would make their desires known...maybe you caught them on a bad day?

I don't know, hope I'm not hijacking the thread but anyone have any thoughts?

 

[TexasRose]

Interesting...would you suggest as a rule not specifically letting people know that you're interested? (i'll be starting third year soon...and I'd rather that not happen to me)

It seems strange though...the director would have to know that some people in the class actually want to do peds, and that some of them would make their desires known...maybe you caught them on a bad day?

I don't know, hope I'm not hijacking the thread but anyone have any thoughts?

My experience has been that if you tell them you don't want to do a specific field that you are currently rotating in, you run the risk of getting a mediocre eval. They figure you don't care, regardless of how hard you work.

Always demonstrate interest in the rotation. I wouldn't recommend lying about it, because that's easy to see through. However, if you can come up with a couple of reasons for yourself why, say gynecology, is important to you it could help your eval tremendously.

If you are genuinely interested in a field, let them know. It doesn't have to be a big announcement, just say it with confidence when someone asks. I've never seen it hurt anyone to show interest.

 

[ChildNeuro]

If I had it to do again I would say, "I'm considering pediatrics as one of my options", instead of stating that I really had my heart set on peds all along. I think sometimes that if you seem like you have your mind made up early in third year it sounds like you haven't explored all the areas of medicine, are narrow minded etc. . . they are plenty of stories were people thought they would hate surgery, did surgery and loved it, which sounds sort of cool in a clique type of way. I think that if you are non-commital it will sound more honest than if you state what you are really thinking. I wouldn't say this is necessarily dishonest, who can say, we could all in theory change our minds.

Alot of third year is a "game" in the words of one medicine clerkship director, and one my former classmates said it best, "third year is a very political year." You really have to experience some rotations in third year to at your institutions to figure what the politics are like. It is invaluable to know what an attending likes to talk about, how to please them etc. . . before you rotate with them, I went crazy during third year trying to please attendings who often found times to pick on me for no apparent reason (fellow classmates wondered why such and such an attending was giving me or another student a hard time). It helps to know if attending X wants students to act this or that way, I though focusing on patient care and educating myself was my most important objective, but you soon realize that as a third year you almost have to put on a show to please residents and attendings . . . sad but true.

At my peds rotation they just started taking students, my peds attending would make sarcastic comments and frown and made a noise indicating that my powerpoint presentation was not good enough *during* the presentation, while another female pediatrician said that it was "good". (I gave one powerpoint a week in psych, a couple in surgery, probably 20 presentations this year, one student told me after breast CA presentation "That was the best presentation I have ever heard in medical school, I actually learned something and I stayed awake.) I hope he got some students who tell them they don't like the harassment. he told during inpatient rounds, after berrating me in front of a student, "medical school isn't something you just get through." He loved being a judge of students, I hope someone finally lays into him . . .