Putting off a rotation till 4th year to play catch up

[Stimulusbill]

First of all, I'm a long time reader of SDN. Been coming here for about 6 years, and I credit the info I read here with guiding me on what to do to get in to med school. This place is a valuable resource!

Now, I've gotten myself into a situation where I really need to get some advice on a specific situation. Disclaimer: I am painfully aware that my current circumstances are my own fault. If you want to rant at me about that, that's fine, but trust me, I already know.

I'm in the middle of my third year. First two years went ok. I definitely under-performed, doing just enough to get by. A few high passes mixed in with passes, and nearly failed biochem but not quite (passed by maybe 7 total questions!) Step one was slightly below national average. I got by mostly on being a very good test taker. In a word, I was lazy.

Now I'm paying for it. Big time. Started out clinical rotations on psych. Managed to do ok. Next came peds, ob, and internal. All remarkable only for my mediocre-at-best performance. I miss at least half the questions I'm asked when pimped (and I'm not just talking about the hard ones), and fumble through my answer when I'm correct. Shelf scores have been below average. I guess I don't need to go on and on providing examples of where I am as a student... The point is I didn't learn the material like I needed to the first two years. Instead I relied on good test taking skills and low expectations of myself to get by.

I'm tired of not knowing any of the answers to clinical questions. I had the idea today that I would put off my next rotation until 4th year (contigent upon approval by my school's administration) and use that time to study and learn what should have been learned the last two years. It would suck to use up nearly all of my free time of 4th year, but I can't continue in this field with the terrible foundation I've set for myself. Has anyone else done this? Would doing this be making a big mistake? Would it look worse on my record than just continuing on and doing my best to play catch up in my (non-existent) free time? Any advice or comment welcome. I need some outside perspective. Thanks!

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[Dral]

The one thing to remember is that by doing this, you're going to have a more difficult time with other things. Some of my friends took off rotation time to make it up 4th year and let's just say, I'm glad I'm not them. You will want to take time off 4th year for Step II CS and CK and interviewing. If you take the time now, it may be tough. However, I think your 3rd year grades are more important.

Another thing to consider, is the difficulty of using just 4 or 8 weeks to catch up. You could, but it would take some pretty hardcore studying. You may be able to just pick one book for each of your remaining rotations and read through it during the time off. I hope you can discipline yourself to study that much. I am personally burnt out big time from the amount of time I put into step I.

 

[Scaredshizzles]

First of all, I'm a long time reader of SDN. Been coming here for about 6 years, and I credit the info I read here with guiding me on what to do to get in to med school. This place is a valuable resource!

Now, I've gotten myself into a situation where I really need to get some advice on a specific situation. Disclaimer: I am painfully aware that my current circumstances are my own fault. If you want to rant at me about that, that's fine, but trust me, I already know.

I'm in the middle of my third year. First two years went ok. I definitely under-performed, doing just enough to get by. A few high passes mixed in with passes, and nearly failed biochem but not quite (passed by maybe 7 total questions!) Step one was slightly below national average. I got by mostly on being a very good test taker. In a word, I was lazy.

Now I'm paying for it. Big time. Started out clinical rotations on psych. Managed to do ok. Next came peds, ob, and internal. All remarkable only for my mediocre-at-best performance. I miss at least half the questions I'm asked when pimped (and I'm not just talking about the hard ones), and fumble through my answer when I'm correct. Shelf scores have been below average. I guess I don't need to go on and on providing examples of where I am as a student... The point is I didn't learn the material like I needed to the first two years. Instead I relied on good test taking skills and low expectations of myself to get by.

I'm tired of not knowing any of the answers to clinical questions. I had the idea today that I would put off my next rotation until 4th year (contigent upon approval by my school's administration) and use that time to study and learn what should have been learned the last two years. It would suck to use up nearly all of my free time of 4th year, but I can't continue in this field with the terrible foundation I've set for myself. Has anyone else done this? Would doing this be making a big mistake? Would it look worse on my record than just continuing on and doing my best to play catch up in my (non-existent) free time? Any advice or comment welcome. I need some outside perspective. Thanks!

Forget about the first two years of medical school, you passed, you don't need the vast majority of that material. If you get pimped on it, so be it....everyone feels dumb during pimping sessions...it is hard to think on the spot. The person doing the pimping has it easy, they are asking you stuff that they know and have in their mind. The beauty of it is that one attending can easily pimp a fellow attending and make them look dumb. The reality of clinical practice is you don't need to have everything in rapid access memory...things come to your mind when they are pertinent to a certain pattern of presentation of a patient. Not to mention we live in the information age, it is not what you know, it is knowing how to use what you can look up at the nearest computer terminal or your cell phone.

 

[Zweisamkeit]

First of all, I'm a long time reader of SDN. Been coming here for about 6 years, and I credit the info I read here with guiding me on what to do to get in to med school. This place is a valuable resource!

Now, I've gotten myself into a situation where I really need to get some advice on a specific situation. Disclaimer: I am painfully aware that my current circumstances are my own fault. If you want to rant at me about that, that's fine, but trust me, I already know.

I'm in the middle of my third year. First two years went ok. I definitely under-performed, doing just enough to get by. A few high passes mixed in with passes, and nearly failed biochem but not quite (passed by maybe 7 total questions!) Step one was slightly below national average. I got by mostly on being a very good test taker. In a word, I was lazy.

Now I'm paying for it. Big time. Started out clinical rotations on psych. Managed to do ok. Next came peds, ob, and internal. All remarkable only for my mediocre-at-best performance. I miss at least half the questions I'm asked when pimped (and I'm not just talking about the hard ones), and fumble through my answer when I'm correct. Shelf scores have been below average. I guess I don't need to go on and on providing examples of where I am as a student... The point is I didn't learn the material like I needed to the first two years. Instead I relied on good test taking skills and low expectations of myself to get by.

I'm tired of not knowing any of the answers to clinical questions. I had the idea today that I would put off my next rotation until 4th year (contigent upon approval by my school's administration) and use that time to study and learn what should have been learned the last two years. It would suck to use up nearly all of my free time of 4th year, but I can't continue in this field with the terrible foundation I've set for myself. Has anyone else done this? Would doing this be making a big mistake? Would it look worse on my record than just continuing on and doing my best to play catch up in my (non-existent) free time? Any advice or comment welcome. I need some outside perspective. Thanks!

I'm sorry that I can't provide a thorough comment because I'm not yet a 3rd year nor do I know anyone who has done what you are thinking about doing. Having said that, you have to keep in mind that 50% of your class is going to be in the bottom half. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just how it is.

Second of all, there is no way you are going to learn everything that "should have been learned the last two years" by delaying a rotation. That's why they say that if you've been doing poorly in all of your classes and not learning the material, don't expect to be pulling 250s on Step 1. There's just way too much material to thoroughly learn it in a short period.

So if I were you, I wouldn't delay your rotations. Just do the best you can and study as hard as you can during your rotations. I know how it's frustrating to be a mediocre student because I'm one. I hate getting PBL questions wrong. I hate always scoring at class average or a little below. But I would never consider stopping 2nd year so I can go back and relearn stuff so I can perhaps answer more questions correctly. Yuck. You just have to look at the bright side of things. At least you've never failed a class, which a good number of students can't say.

By the way, what specialty are you most interested in at this point?

Good luck and I certainly hoped I helped a little!

 

[Dr. McDreamy]

So you were an average student? So were most of us. It's not really that big of a deal. I would not take off time to study now. You will need that time for interviews 4th year. If you passed step 1 you know enough to graduate from med school. Really it's not that hard to graduate. Just focus on studying hard once you get to residency. THAT'S the specialized information you really need to know.

 

[MrBurns10]

You can do very well in your rotations without doing well your first two years. The typical pimp questions are more clinically-oriented, not usually based in the basic sciences. My suggestion is to not take time away from rotations as this would be very low-yield, and instead change up how you're studying now during your rotations. Are you doing reading everyday? What sorts of things are you reading? Reevaluate how you're studying, ask your residents/attendings for feedback often, and see how that goes. Best of luck.

 

[njbmd]

First of all, I'm a long time reader of SDN. Been coming here for about 6 years, and I credit the info I read here with guiding me on what to do to get in to med school. This place is a valuable resource!

Now, I've gotten myself into a situation where I really need to get some advice on a specific situation. Disclaimer: I am painfully aware that my current circumstances are my own fault. If you want to rant at me about that, that's fine, but trust me, I already know.

I'm in the middle of my third year. First two years went ok. I definitely under-performed, doing just enough to get by. A few high passes mixed in with passes, and nearly failed biochem but not quite (passed by maybe 7 total questions!) Step one was slightly below national average. I got by mostly on being a very good test taker. In a word, I was lazy.

Now I'm paying for it. Big time. Started out clinical rotations on psych. Managed to do ok. Next came peds, ob, and internal. All remarkable only for my mediocre-at-best performance. I miss at least half the questions I'm asked when pimped (and I'm not just talking about the hard ones), and fumble through my answer when I'm correct. Shelf scores have been below average. I guess I don't need to go on and on providing examples of where I am as a student... The point is I didn't learn the material like I needed to the first two years. Instead I relied on good test taking skills and low expectations of myself to get by.

I'm tired of not knowing any of the answers to clinical questions. I had the idea today that I would put off my next rotation until 4th year (contigent upon approval by my school's administration) and use that time to study and learn what should have been learned the last two years. It would suck to use up nearly all of my free time of 4th year, but I can't continue in this field with the terrible foundation I've set for myself. Has anyone else done this? Would doing this be making a big mistake? Would it look worse on my record than just continuing on and doing my best to play catch up in my (non-existent) free time? Any advice or comment welcome. I need some outside perspective. Thanks!

With your preclinical performance coupled with your clinical performance which looks like all passes (so far) with no honors, you may be putting yourself at a disadvantage for residency. You will have to account for prolonging your medical education (unless you are going to graduate in four years) which is not a sound idea.

If you were taking time off to get another degree (MPH for example) or for illness, you would be fine. Most everything else can wind up being a liablity when residency program directors begin to look at your educational record. You can always do some regular extra study on free weekends and days off but at this point, don't do anything that might prolong your medical school years.

 

[BigRedBeta]

They call it being pimped for a reason...it's uncomfortable and unnatural.

Seriously, don't worry about it. I highly, highly, highly doubt that relearning physiology and biochemistry is really going to make that significant of difference in being able to answer questions on the spot. What will help? Reading more NOW...and getting over the fact that you don't know everything (to be frank, it sounds like your ego is getting bruised more than anything else at the moment). Get over your fear of saying "I don't know" and things will improve.

And it's not the end of the world to be below average. I'm guessing with below average board scores you're not gunning for that integrated plastics residency. There are still a great many residency programs in many different fields that will accept you as you stand at the moment. That said, njb is very, very correct that having to explain gaps in your education will hurt you far more than simply being mediocre.

 

[wahoo2009]

I do not recommend taking time off, for many of the reasons outlined above.

You should shake up the way you are studying.

I have two words for you, Case Files!!! It really is a great series, and a lot of people really enjoy the format. Most of the series is really great, ( especially OB) and it helped me consistently score in the upper 80's to 90's on my shelfs. Also helps with pimping because there are a lot of clinical pearls in the cases.

I think you could also supplement with Pre-Test books. These tend to be more hit or miss. I liked Peds, Neuro and Psych.

In addition to the above, I recommend Surgical Recall. (It's like pre-pimping yourself)

Generally, being prepared for "pimping" is knowing clinically relevant information. The above resources can help you learn what is clinically relevant.

Good luck to you!

 

[peregrina]

If you're feeling your foundation is shaky, you may be right. Listen to your gut.
Have you considered taking a whole year off to do research? There are opportunities through NIH and other institutions. Also, several universities offer a one year Pathology fellowship to students who have finished their first two years. That could help you kill two birds with one stone--path being a great foundation for clinical medicine, and the fellowship would be a strength rather than weakness in your c.v.