Path forward/career advice - MS1

[John1999]

hey,
I am a first-year medical student who is encountering significant challenges and struggling academically, particularly in exam performance. I have failed one block already and am currently at risk of failing another. Throughout our first year, we are required to complete a total of 16 exams, comprising both in-house assessments and NBME exams across five blocks. Up to now, I have completed 14 exams, failing four of them, with my most recent exam score at 60%. I never got a grade above 75%, consistently scoring in the low 70s, despite the class average consistently being in the 80s. I currently use BnB + lecture videos as well as Anki but for some reason, I am not seeing any benefit. Given my situation, I am worried that I could fail out at some point and I just need advice on how to go from here. For my entire life I always wanted to become a doctor and dedicated time and resources however I feel like the walls are closing in. Any advice will help.

Study schedule:
Watch lecture 8-11
Do Anki ~ 400 cards/day
Watch BnB for supplementation

Background:
Graduated in 2023 -Undergrad - Mechanical engineering - 3.54 cumulative
MCAT - 503(128/122/128/125)

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[operaman]

What has your school’s academic support service told you?

On first glance, I see some things missing from your study schedule:

Group study with classmates
Group tutoring
Individual tutoring
***Practice questions (big one here)
Cumulative reviews of material

Your study schedule is pretty light and it looks like you’re relying solely on Anki for repetition of key concepts. Scoring as low as you are also says you’re missing a lot of basic high yield material, something that good practice questions can also help fix.

Your uGPA and mcat suggest you should have little trouble with med school academically, so either your approach to the material is not adequate or you’re also dealing with some other extracurricular issues you haven’t shared here (which is fine, no need to).

What to do now:
1) meet with your schools academic support services today/tomorrow. This is urgent. Figure out if you can pass the year and what it will take mathematically. If there are some remediation pathways and the scores you need a feasible for you, that’s one thing. If you need to suddenly score over 90 on every future exam just to pass the year, that’s another. But figure out if passing/remediating this year is even realistic at this point, and start strategizing how to fix your study habits going forward.

2) meet with someone in the deans office or similar upper level student admin that you like. Ask academic support folks who this would be at your school if you don’t already know. If your situation is so dire that passing or somehow remediating the year is going to be impossible, then you need to proactively talk about a LOA and repeating the year. Depending on your school’s policies, you may even want to finish out the year knowing you’ll have to repeat just to get practice with your new and improved study method before redoing it in the fall.

This is not going to be the last time you ever need lots of help btw. Medicine is very much a team sport. Human frailty and disease are going to kick your tail even harder than M1 ever did, and it’s going to do it while suffering people and their families are packed in your clinic exam rooms or around a hospital bedside looking to you for answers. I ask for help all the time from colleagues and mentors and other people in my field I don’t even know that well. This job is hard and overwhelms the best of us all the time; you’re just getting that lesson a bit earlier.

Be a good physician: consult some expert help and make a plan.

 

[John1999]

What has your school’s academic support service told you?

On first glance, I see some things missing from your study schedule:

Group study with classmates
Group tutoring
Individual tutoring
***Practice questions (big one here)
Cumulative reviews of material

Your study schedule is pretty light and it looks like you’re relying solely on Anki for repetition of key concepts. Scoring as low as you are also says you’re missing a lot of basic high yield material, something that good practice questions can also help fix.

Your uGPA and mcat suggest you should have little trouble with med school academically, so either your approach to the material is not adequate or you’re also dealing with some other extracurricular issues you haven’t shared here (which is fine, no need to).

What to do now:
1) meet with your schools academic support services today/tomorrow. This is urgent. Figure out if you can pass the year and what it will take mathematically. If there are some remediation pathways and the scores you need a feasible for you, that’s one thing. If you need to suddenly score over 90 on every future exam just to pass the year, that’s another. But figure out if passing/remediating this year is even realistic at this point, and start strategizing how to fix your study habits going forward.

2) meet with someone in the deans office or similar upper level student admin that you like. Ask academic support folks who this would be at your school if you don’t already know. If your situation is so dire that passing or somehow remediating the year is going to be impossible, then you need to proactively talk about a LOA and repeating the year. Depending on your school’s policies, you may even want to finish out the year knowing you’ll have to repeat just to get practice with your new and improved study method before redoing it in the fall.

This is not going to be the last time you ever need lots of help btw. Medicine is very much a team sport. Human frailty and disease are going to kick your tail even harder than M1 ever did, and it’s going to do it while suffering people and their families are packed in your clinic exam rooms or around a hospital bedside looking to you for answers. I ask for help all the time from colleagues and mentors and other people in my field I don’t even know that well. This job is hard and overwhelms the best of us all the time; you’re just getting that lesson a bit earlier.

Be a good physician: consult some expert help and make a plan.

Thank you, i did speak with the academic support service but the only guidance they gave me was a pdf version of exam exam-taking strategy.

 

[MateoGM416]

If the class average is in the 80's, you're definitely not the only one in your class who is struggling. Are there pre-made decks for your in-house lectures? I found that just doing decks made by upperclassmen boosted my grades significantly when I struggled with trying to balance third party resources with class material. You can figure out how to implement board studying resources later.

 

[Putkernerinthehall]

U World is a great resource for practice questions.

 

[DarkBluMage]

hey,
I am a first-year medical student who is encountering significant challenges and struggling academically, particularly in exam performance. I have failed one block already and am currently at risk of failing another. Throughout our first year, we are required to complete a total of 16 exams, comprising both in-house assessments and NBME exams across five blocks. Up to now, I have completed 14 exams, failing four of them, with my most recent exam score at 60%. I never got a grade above 75%, consistently scoring in the low 70s, despite the class average consistently being in the 80s. I currently use BnB + lecture videos as well as Anki but for some reason, I am not seeing any benefit. Given my situation, I am worried that I could fail out at some point and I just need advice on how to go from here. For my entire life I always wanted to become a doctor and dedicated time and resources however I feel like the walls are closing in. Any advice will help.

Study schedule:
Watch lecture 8-11
Do Anki ~ 400 cards/day
Watch BnB for supplementation

Background:
Graduated in 2023 -Undergrad - Mechanical engineering - 3.54 cumulative
MCAT - 503(128/122/128/125)

You’re not doing enough active studying. You need to work in practice questions as well.

 

[Med Ed]

I've had a number of engineering majors in medical school. Half breeze through. The other half struggle mightily. The distribution is bimodal.

The short answer is questions, questions, and more questions. If you are not doing retrieval practice (i.e. questions) then you are showing up on exam days at a severe disadvantage.

Also, like anything else, answering multiple choice questions is part knowledge and part skill, and the skill aspect can be improved with practice. Some people are naturally much better at it than others.

Finally, make an appointment with the relevant office on campus to get tested for an undiagnosed learning disorder. We have about one a year who comes up positive and does much better with treatment and accomodations.