LOA on ERAS advice

[CrypticRomantic]

Hello everyone!

At the beginning of my first year as a medical student, I failed 2 courses. I had a hard time adapting to medical school and had a lot of anxiety/depression, including the fact that I was not sure if med school was right for me.. So I took a LOA for the rest of the year (doing coursework in my weak areas (e.g. anatomy), managing my mental health, and figuring out whether I wanted to continue this path). I went back without anymore failures and now I am a 4th year medical student applying to residency programs.

On ERAS, there is a section to explain LOAs. Do I include my mental health issues or just mention my difficulties adapting? Also, should I elaborate on my LOA in my personal statement?

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[LunaOri]

If you did well when you re-started medical school ("without any more failures" isn't the same as "doing well") then you are probably fine to explain that you floundered the first semester and decided to start over and do it right.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Moving to ERAS.

You can approach this in either way, as you either had issues with adjusting to med school or had uncontrolled mental health issues which affected your performance in med school. In either case, the important thing to focus on is how you concretely addressed the problem and that it was not an issue (and won't be an issue) going forward.

 

[CrypticRomantic]

If you did well when you re-started medical school ("without any more failures" isn't the same as "doing well") then you are probably fine to explain that you floundered the first semester and decided to start over and do it right.

Hmm, well I wouldn't say "did well." I didn't barely pass but I was not above average either. I'm just a terrible test-taker..