Never Thought I'd Feel So Average...

[umean2tellme]

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#1

So you would prefer to say you're the smartest of all the garbage men (nothing against garbage men I'm just using a career that is not known for being that intellectually challenging) than being in the middle of your class at a med school? An average doctor knows a lot about many different things that the general public could only imagine.

 

[dude1344]

So you would prefer to say you're the smartest of all the garbage men (nothing against garbage men I'm just using a career that is not known for being that intellectually challenging) than being in the middle of your class at a med school? An average doctor knows a lot about many different things that the general public could only imagine.

I'm guessing here, but i think he took your question to mean if you would be #1 in a med school class full of idiots or be in the middle of a class full of geniuses. At least I did.

 

[weightyheart]

I should have gone to a worse med school. My class is too smart, and I am hanging on to the top 5% by the skin of my teeth. Oh if only I had applied to FIU.....the fire is on.

 

[SirGecko]

I should have gone to a worse med school. My class is too smart, and I am hanging on to the top 5% by the skin of my teeth. Oh if only I had applied to FIU.....the fire is on.

Really? Really? You posted that to *this* thread?

 

[mfrizzo3]

Would you rather be number one in a class full of idiots or avg in a class full of geniuses?

The "geniuses" are at MIT and CalTech getting PhDs.

 

[weightyheart]

Sorry, I must have posted in the wrong thread. So what I meant to say is, someone has to be first and someone has to be last. It's all really just a game of drawing #2 graphite circles on a piece of paper. Furthermore, even if you and I were to play the game, 80% on an exam in medical school does not mean that you only know 80% of the material. It is a heavily biased 70 question exam that tests your knowledge of over 5000 facts that you memorized per exam per course. My point is, someone in the top 5% is really no better or worse a person than someone in the bottom 5%....at least that is what I keep telling those poor, insignificant fools.

 

[xanthomondo]

I should have gone to a worse med school. My class is too smart, and I am hanging on to the top 5% by the skin of my teeth. Oh if only I had applied to FIU.....the fire is on.

Really? Really? You posted that to *this* thread?

You must have missed this. I believe it insinuates sarcasm.

 

[Random Anesthesiologist]

(well, except biochem, although even there some of the clinical stuff can be interesting - who knew 90% of South Asians are lactose intolerant? I live on dairy products).

To be fair - that data was a joke 🙂

 

[xanthomondo]

So you would prefer to say you're the smartest of all the garbage men (nothing against garbage men I'm just using a career that is not known for being that intellectually challenging) than being in the middle of your class at a med school? An average doctor knows a lot about many different things that the general public could only imagine.

Studies have proven that happiness usually comes from who you surround and compare yourself with. If you have a $400,000 house in a neighborhood of $200,000 homes you're going to feel richer than if you have a $750,000 house in the middle of a $1.5M neighborhood.

 

[umean2tellme]

I should have gone to a worse med school. My class is too smart, and I am hanging on to the top 5% by the skin of my teeth. Oh if only I had applied to FIU.....the fire is on.

You have a problem with FIU?

 

[45408]

It's all really just a game of drawing #2 graphite circles on a piece of paper.

Step 1 is on the computer, actually.

Your M3 grades are more important anyways, and they're not all about dots and checkboxes.

 

[Perrotfish]

Studies have proven that happiness usually comes from who you surround and compare yourself with. If you have a $400,000 house in a neighborhood of $200,000 homes you're going to feel richer than if you have a $750,000 house in the middle of a $1.5M neighborhood

This is, BTW, one of the best arguments I've ever heard for going into rural Family Medicine.

 

[SirGecko]

You must have missed this. I believe it insinuates sarcasm.

Oh snap. I'm never one of those people that misses the blatant sarcasm and jumps to troll. Color me embarrassed.

 

[45408]

This is, BTW, one of the best arguments I've ever heard for going into rural Family Medicine.

You can do rural General Surgery too. Some of those guys will do everything from C-sections to pediatric surgeries to trauma surgery and ruptured AAAs. If you're out in a small town, and there's a huge storm keeping the helicopters grounded, then you're it.

 

[LateBl00meR]

Would you rather be number one in a class full of idiots or avg in a class full of geniuses?

"In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king."

 

[kl323]

I'm also struggling to get over the fact that I can only be average.. In my case, I might be just below average.

While many people say grades from years 1 and 2 don't matter as much as what's to come, you gotta admit that those grades, if you do well, will open up many more doors for you.

I'm trying very hard and I just can't seem to get into the groove of things. It usually takes me a year to warm up to a new academic routine. (e.g. I usually start off slow in year 1 of HS and college)... I hope with the fast pace of med school, I can adapt to it sooner than later...

 

[Random Anesthesiologist]

Studies have proven that happiness usually comes from who you surround and compare yourself with. If you have a $400,000 house in a neighborhood of $200,000 homes you're going to feel richer than if you have a $750,000 house in the middle of a $1.5M neighborhood.

Even better - a house of any price in the country just outside of town 😛

 

[Random Anesthesiologist]

You can do rural General Surgery too. Some of those guys will do everything from C-sections to pediatric surgeries to trauma surgery and ruptured AAAs. If you're out in a small town, and there's a huge storm keeping the helicopters grounded, then you're it.

👍

My hometown's general surgeon has had his fair share of all of this.

Usually lap choles, appendectomies, colonoscopies, etc. but his work is never "dull".

If I end up with the board scores and enjoy my surgery rotation and do well on it, it will be a specialty I'd very much like to consider.

 

[xmsr3]

Just remember the most important equation in med school.

P=MD

 

[Narmerguy]

🙄

Its a very reasonable assumption to assume that grades are normally distributed.

Furthermore, in the case that you described of many people scoring the same as him that would make the mean equal to the median. This is one of the hallmark properties of a normal distribution.

Quite true, but that was my entire point.I was pointing out two separate scenarios that makes his case false. My first point was arguing that the mean was not necessarily the median. My second point was that even if the mean was the median, this statement is still not necessarily true. His statement was that if you are average than you therefore must score better than HALF of the class. If half of the class all got a 90, there is no way someone who scored a 90 could have scored better than half the class.

Secondly, it is not always a reasonable assumption to assume that grades are normally distributed. This is highly dependent on the school, the class, and the subject.

I hope that makes more sense, I should have realized that I would need to clarify this more because the concept is usually hard for people to understand at first because it seems counter-intuitive.

 

[Random Anesthesiologist]

We get to look at histograms for each exam to see where we fall in the class conglomerate.

That's a nice thing to have handy.

 

[docONcall]

You'll get used to it. I felt like that too when I was a freshman but I got over it when I became a sophomore.

 

[disarticulate]

Do you know what "average" means? It means 1/2 of your class is scoring worse than you.

Are you seriously asking this? Did you honestly think the OP (a med student) wasn't privy to the conceptual definition of average?

 

[unsung]

Are you seriously asking this? Did you honestly think the OP (a med student) wasn't privy to the conceptual definition of average?

Disarticulate, you must not be reading that sentence with the appropriate tone of voice in your head. 🙄

Clearly, I'm not trying to insult anyone. (And yeah, I assumed a normal distribution, so you guys can drop that argument too.)

We all "know" things abstractly or theoretically... but that doesn't mean we necessarily think about these things in relation to ourselves. Not to get too abstract here... but why exactly are jokes funny?

Jokes are funny because they phrase things that we already know in an unexpected way. Just because we know something doesn't mean we necessarily conceptualize it in a certain way. If you see a glass half-filled with water, it takes conceptualization to think of it either as half-full or as half-empty.

To be more concise, in case the above confused your literal mind, it was a rhetorical question.

 

[disarticulate]

My question was just as rhetorical, haha. I wasn't literally asking you if that's what you were doing. 👍

 

[Dral]

Step 1 is on the computer, actually.

Your M3 grades are more important anyways, and they're not all about dots and checkboxes.

For real? I beg to differ. It makes sense that different schools grade differently during M3. Not to mention it's understood that there is some subjectivity in the whole M3 'grading' process.

Step 1 involves so much less subjectivity.

I know specialties differ, but if you see page 6 of this report, it seems Step 1 is more important.

http://www.nrmp.org/data/programresultsbyspecialty.pdf

 

[Specimen]

Med school is full of very intelligent people who are adept at taking exams, pathologically compulsive and perfectionist, and will run you over if you get in their way. They have their weapons of choice: caffeinated beverages, caffeine pills, Ritalin, Adderall, SSRIs, all-nighters, comfort foods, isolation... and then stuff that is too embarrassing to our profession to discuss here.

When you are stressed about a score, ask yourself what you want to be doing when you finish school. If you are not certain, then take some time to figure it out. If you're just a perfectionist that wants honors, then you are cursed because there will always be a next step... a residency, fellowship, or academic track where the competition is much greater and praise and distinction are more elusive.


I went to a school that beat me up pretty good in my first two years. I got some crappy grades and I got some outstanding grades. The only consistency was that I felt anxious and inadequate until I decided what I wanted to do for a specialty and made it my goal not to worry about anything that wasn't integral to matching at a good program in that specialty. When I got a peek at my dean's letter, there were maybe two sentences about my my preclinical years and they were generic. None of the programs really gave a poo about a test I blew or a class I rocked... they wanted to know about my research and clinical experiences. Step I is very important, however.

First two years are about preparing for Step I. Someone who is average or less than average can own that exam and match just as well as top exam scorers.

Do not worry about being less than average on your exam performances, shelf exams, etc... figure out how to be a good doctor. The true test is when you start caring for patients - can you take care of things efficiently, leave no stone unturned, and put out fires quickly? Those things will make for a happier career than some academic distinction in first year biochemistry.

 

[hikikomori]

My school has a secret society developed by the medical school for people who get the highest scores. Basically, if you're not on the top 25 (top 20%), you're not invited. It's a hush-hush society although words get out, which make many students who are not in the top 20% pissed off. Apparently this elite club gets lunches, extra tutoring, and past exams to stay on top whereas the rest of the class receive no faculty support and survive on our own.

So, average? Average is fine. Even below average is fine, especially if the average is 90. As long as you ace the boards, you'll get the residency you want. That's what matters. My surgical chair said that the grades of the first two years are not important. As for me, I just want to graduate asap and as far as I'm concerned, my medical school will not see a single cent from me as an alumnus.

 

[sylvanthus]

I somewhat agree that it seems the first two years don't really matter as far as grades go. What worries me and I am seeing a lot, is that people are making the broad assumption that if they scored average for two years that they will somehow rock step 1 and I am willing to bet that this happens less often than people wish.

 

[njbmd]

I somewhat agree that it seems the first two years don't really matter as far as grades go. What worries me and I am seeing a lot, is that people are making the broad assumption that if they scored average for two years that they will somehow rock step 1 and I am willing to bet that this happens less often than people wish.

This is generally true in that USMLE Step I scores will mirror grades from MS-1 and MS-2. There are always one or two exceptions but don't plan on being the exception because you have purchased a bunch of review books or taken a review course. There is always the other direction where many of the last minute crammers find themselves doing less than distinguished on Step I but have done well on regurgitation exams in their preclinical coursework. The top scorers on boards are usually the folks who have consistently done well over the long haul.

The key is that you have to pass your coursework doing the best that you can and you have to review for boards doing the best that you can. In the end, everyone isn't going to be competitive for everything and you have to learn to live with what happens. Fortunately, there is enough variety in medicine to accommodate everyone and no specialty is the "do all, end all and be all" for the practice of medicine. Even if your barely pass Step I or fail Step I on the first try, there will still be something out there that you can do in medicine that will be a great career for you.

There are people who score very high in coursework and on boards that elect to enter the primary care specialties and there are people who don't do so well in coursework/boards who with a strong third year performance, can get into surgical specialties. Going into derm or ortho isn't for everyone and most folks can't love those specialties before they have a chance to see what the practice of those specialties actually entails.

Bottom line: Chill out, do the best that you can and remember that there are tons of little pre-med wannabes out there that would kill to have your seat in medical school regardless of performance. In short, loads of people will not make it as far as you have. Do your best and get things like "average" out of your vocabulary. If you have made it into medical school in the United States, you are not average. You have to get beyond the comparison of yourself with others because in making those comparisons, you are always going to come up short in something so the comparisons are a waste of time.

 

[45408]

For real? I beg to differ. It makes sense that different schools grade differently during M3. Not to mention it's understood that there is some subjectivity in the whole M3 'grading' process.

Step 1 involves so much less subjectivity.

I know specialties differ, but if you see page 6 of this report, it seems Step 1 is more important.

http://www.nrmp.org/data/programresultsbyspecialty.pdf

I was saying M3 grades are more important than M1/M2 grades, not that they're more important than Step 1.

 

[WellWornLad]

OP, in my opinion your performance is low for someone who was at the 'top of their class' in high school and/or college.

Seriously? Have you even been to a public high school in the US?

 

[Deferoxamine]

This is generally true in that USMLE Step I scores will mirror grades from MS-1 and MS-2. There are always one or two exceptions but don't plan on being the exception because you have purchased a bunch of review books or taken a review course. There is always the other direction where many of the last minute crammers find themselves doing less than distinguished on Step I but have done well on regurgitation exams in their preclinical coursework. The top scorers on boards are usually the folks who have consistently done well over the long haul.

The key is that you have to pass your coursework doing the best that you can and you have to review for boards doing the best that you can. In the end, everyone isn't going to be competitive for everything and you have to learn to live with what happens. Fortunately, there is enough variety in medicine to accommodate everyone and no specialty is the "do all, end all and be all" for the practice of medicine. Even if your barely pass Step I or fail Step I on the first try, there will still be something out there that you can do in medicine that will be a great career for you.

There are people who score very high in coursework and on boards that elect to enter the primary care specialties and there are people who don't do so well in coursework/boards who with a strong third year performance, can get into surgical specialties. Going into derm or ortho isn't for everyone and most folks can't love those specialties before they have a chance to see what the practice of those specialties actually entails.

Bottom line: Chill out, do the best that you can and remember that there are tons of little pre-med wannabes out there that would kill to have your seat in medical school regardless of performance. In short, loads of people will not make it as far as you have. Do your best and get things like "average" out of your vocabulary. If you have made it into medical school in the United States, you are not average. You have to get beyond the comparison of yourself with others because in making those comparisons, you are always going to come up short in something so the comparisons are a waste of time.

This is a clutch post.

You are an SDN God(dess).

 

[mrivera]

Are you seriously asking this? Did you honestly think the OP (a med student) wasn't privy to the conceptual definition of average?

Unsung is incorrect. What he defined was the Median, not the average. FAIL.

 

[WashMe]

If the OP feels "so average," he should try to imagine going to a school where the average person had almost a 3.9 undergrad GPA and scored in the 98th percentile on the MCAT... Every day for me is an uphill battle against these freakin maniacs. I wouldn't be happy about, but I could easily see myself ending up in the middle 1/3 of the class (uncharted territory). Hopefully not the bottom 1/3!

 

[Narmerguy]

If the OP feels "so average," he should try to imagine going to a school where the average person had almost a 3.9 undergrad GPA and scored in the 98th percentile on the MCAT... Every day for me is an uphill battle against these freakin maniacs. I wouldn't be happy about, but I could easily see myself ending up in the middle 1/3 of the class (uncharted territory). Hopefully not the bottom 1/3!

Yeah I imagine it's kind of demoralizing but uplifting at the same time.

 

[WashMe]

Yeah I imagine it's kind of demoralizing but uplifting at the same time.

Well, I guess it makes me work harder than I would otherwise. That might not be true though, as it's hard to be the biggest fish in any pond.

 

[mrcmedman]

I know how it feels....I really bombed my first Histo and Anatomy tests. I failed Histo by 3% and I barely passed Anatomy. Things weren't looking good for me at all. And at that point, I started hearing stories that every year 25-30 students were forced to repeat first year at our school....

Suffice to say, I had to completely change my studying strategies after that debacle. I did much better on the next three tests. And while I still finished below the class average by a couple of percentage points, I was still well above our passing threshold (68%).

And I take solace in the fact that besides introductory biology, I had zero biological sciences background coming into med school.

 

[Jwax]

This is, BTW, one of the best arguments I've ever heard for going into rural Family Medicine.

👍

This is generally true in that USMLE Step I scores will mirror grades from MS-1 and MS-2. There are always one or two exceptions but don't plan on being the exception because you have purchased a bunch of review books or taken a review course. There is always the other direction where many of the last minute crammers find themselves doing less than distinguished on Step I but have done well on regurgitation exams in their preclinical coursework. The top scorers on boards are usually the folks who have consistently done well over the long haul.

The key is that you have to pass your coursework doing the best that you can and you have to review for boards doing the best that you can. In the end, everyone isn't going to be competitive for everything and you have to learn to live with what happens. Fortunately, there is enough variety in medicine to accommodate everyone and no specialty is the "do all, end all and be all" for the practice of medicine. Even if your barely pass Step I or fail Step I on the first try, there will still be something out there that you can do in medicine that will be a great career for you.

There are people who score very high in coursework and on boards that elect to enter the primary care specialties and there are people who don't do so well in coursework/boards who with a strong third year performance, can get into surgical specialties. Going into derm or ortho isn't for everyone and most folks can't love those specialties before they have a chance to see what the practice of those specialties actually entails.

Bottom line: Chill out, do the best that you can and remember that there are tons of little pre-med wannabes out there that would kill to have your seat in medical school regardless of performance. In short, loads of people will not make it as far as you have. Do your best and get things like "average" out of your vocabulary. If you have made it into medical school in the United States, you are not average. You have to get beyond the comparison of yourself with others because in making those comparisons, you are always going to come up short in something so the comparisons are a waste of time.

I was going to respond saying roughly the same thing much less eloquently, so thanks for that post. I'm glad the OP started this thread b/c halfway through 3rd year, I'm finding that I'm still an average student. If you're at the avg for the first two years, you'll probably do avg on Step 1, 3rd year, and Step 2. It's a mix of innate intelligence, willingness to study, time available to study, test taking skills, etc. It was nice to have the reminder that I'm not the only one who has ever felt this way, and it was nice to read the above post that reminded me it is OK to be avg.

As njbmd said, there's a place for all of us as long as we get through. Enjoy your life, kill as few patients as possible, and let the chips fall where they may.

 

[corbis11]

I didn't feel like reading all of this, but I think this quote sums up how I feel about my progress in med school

"If you compare yourself to others, you may become vain and bitter - there will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble."

-Desiderata

 

[gplex86]

As the token English major of my class, I guard the rear with a smile on my face. Though I may never beat the science nerds on exam grades, at least I know I'm better educated.

 

[sunset823]

As the token English major of my class, I guard the rear with a smile on my face. Though I may never beat the science nerds on exam grades, at least I know I'm better educated.

As a fellow Wolverine non-science major who made mediocre numbers at UMich and now in med school, I hear ya. I'm hoping my well-roundedness will count for something in residency apps where my grades/scores are lacking.

 

[Dr. Pickle]

I graduated near the top of my high school. I graduated near the top of my undergraduate college. I was a member of Tri-Beta, Phi Theta Kappa and AKD. I never had to try hard in school. I would understand things readily and study minimally for great results. All my friends think I'm the smartest of the group. My whole family thinks I'm brilliant.

Then I came to Medical School.

Now I feel incredibly ordinary and not special at all. I study ALL the time and still get nothing above the 79-80. I got an 86 on a Biochemistry test a couple of weeks ago and felt like I woke up with big boobs on my face.

Whenever I see that histogram I'm always at the average region. I hear classmates bitching about getting a 92 and I feel like a loser because right now I'd make sweet love to every faculty member to get a 92 on an exam.

Did anyone here go through that? Or is this reality hitting me in the nads at last?

Get. Over. Yourself. (seriously)

 

[VoiceofReason]

in-house exams are generally terrible and far off-point.

i wouldn't sweat them, worry more about how you do on basic science shelf exams (if your school administers them).

 

[HappyG0Lucky]

Being "average" in a typical US medical school probably makes you a lot smarter than most of the people walking around everyday. It's definitely a wake up call to go to medical school and it's no longer so "easy" to just be on top. But you are passing and being average is not a bad thing - half the people in your class are below you. And honestly, if you are feeling that down, find someone who has failed a class or had to repeat the year... that definitely gives some perspective. If you are passing you are doing fine in my opinion.

 

[shinjiru]

Just remember the most important equation in med school.

P=MD

I agree with this 100000%. We will all pass, we will become docs. And when a patient sees you in 10 years, they won't be asking you what your class rank was. Look forward toward the big picture, not the little details 🙂

 

[dude1344]

Of course P=MD, but if you want a say in what KIND of doc you want to be grades matter. I would think the majority of people would want to keep their options open.

 

[gplex86]

Of course P=MD, but if you want a say in what KIND of doc you want to be grades matter. I would think the majority of people would want to keep their options open.

(Source: http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2009v3.pdf)

Not generally true. Competitiveness on SDN is vastly overstated. As long as you're a US senior (MD school), with about a 220 USMLE (The mean for US seniors is 224.3, s.d. = 19.6), and you rank >15 programs, your competitiveness in matching highly competitive specialties is very high, and nearly 100% for matching in general. You may not get your first choice of location, but you'll likely get in. Many highly competitive specialties have plenty of positions for US applicants, and they are heavily favored over international/independent applicants.

Preclinical grades are highly insignificant (many schools don't even have them). But if you can ace those exams then you'll probably ace the boards, too. Grades "matter" only if that means you know the material better.

Success is contingent on adequate/good board scores, good grades in the clinical rotation of the specialty you're applying to, gleaming letters of recommendation from relevant faculty on that rotation, and (most important) applying to as many programs as you can. Inflexibilityis your real enemy. This is what the residency directors actually tell us in med school, and it's backed up by the facts.

Understand that most medical students want nothing to do with your personal choice of specialty. Even if you're gunning for a ROAD specialty, you would be mistaken to assume that top students are all applying. Many would rather be cardiologists, transplant surgeons, neonatologists, etc. And by the way, that match list is going to read: internal medicine, general surgery, pediatrics. Yet another reason why match lists are useless (yet still heavily played on SDN) - you never know what fellowship lies down the road.

EDIT:

Readers, remember to stratify population groups when you're looking at data. Otherwise, the lack of success of independent applicants skews the numbers. If you're a MD student at a US school, and you're about average, then you're doing just fine. If you're in a different educational situation, just be aware of the hurdles, and of course DO students have their own match as well.