Receiving mediocre/subpar evaluations in rotations you don't care about

[Nasrudin]

Not to feed into rifle, but in case anyone is truly wondering about this issue here's some anecdotal evidence from US MD schools. I knew one person who was dismissed because after failing her 3rd year surg rotation she failed her remediation by 1%, no joke. Up to that point she did fine in med school. Another pulled a rifle during an away OB rotation AFTER having matched to his top OB choice. It was the cherry on top of some other professional issues and he was dismissed just before graduation, lost his residency, was dismissed from the military (mil match), received loan penalties for being dismissed from the military who covered his tuition plus stipends which he now has to pay back with interest, and he's currently working at Target. Take away lesson - don't fu(k-up.

Holy crap. I'd rather take a gut punch from 1986 Mike Tyson.

And yet every year clueless clerks will come out of the gates pulling this kind of chicanery. Sad.

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[rifle4802]

You are absolutely wrong. When it comes to "choosing your lifestyle", there are specialties which by nature do not lend themselves as much to lifestyle. FM and Psych are not lifestyle specialties and definitely not during their residency. This isn't Derm. You will have to carry a pager. More and more doctors private practices are consolidating and having to work for hospitals and become a hospital employee, which you will take orders from them, as to how much you'll work. And guess what, they won't be hiring "part-time" doctors.

Nope, that is incorrect. Nothing is lifestyle-friendly during residency. After residency any specialty can be lifestyle-friendly because a doctor can work however much/little he wants to. And your last sentence has my sides splitting. It's not true at all.

 

[rifle4802]

I don't think you're allowed to fail anything and still pass med school. That being said, you basically get High Pass for just coasting through your rotations. You probably won't get anywhere close to only Pass. You basically have to intentionally piss off ppl to get a Sat. To Honor, you basically have to suck up and/or kill the shelf exams.

FM, psych and pathology are not competitive. You can definitely coast all the way through med school and match to any of them. Radiology is pretty competitive but still not crazy. This year they had 81 spots of ~1100 go unfilled until the SOAP. It's been like that the past several years. Although for you, you will be applying to residency in like 2019 and everything will probably be a lot more competitive with ACGME and DO residencies combining and the increasing expansion of allopathic schools and class size.

Yeah, this sounds more reasonable. Passing or low passing should be fine for the rotations I'm not interested in. And if it's as easy as you say it is, looks like it's not all that bad. Just don't flunk the shelf exams.

 

[Nasrudin]

Yeah, this sounds more reasonable. Passing or low passing should be fine for the rotations I'm not interested in. And if it's as easy as you say it is, looks like it's not all that bad. Just don't flunk the shelf exams.

Zip it flunkie troll.

 

[WillburCobb]

Holy crap. I'd rather take a gut punch from 1986 Mike Tyson.

And yet every year clueless clerks will come out of the gates pulling this kind of chicanery. Sad.

To be fair the student with the surg issue had health problems that were prolly 100% for what happened. She had just gotten 3rd year AOA before it happened. The other student, I just don't get it. It's fun though because he's fighting it tooth and nail with a snowball's chance in hell. Even if he gets his degree I think he'd be hard pressed to find a residency program that would touch him.

 

[Nasrudin]

To be fair the student with the surg issue had health problems that were prolly 100% for what happened. She had just gotten 3rd year AOA before it happened. The other student, I just don't get it. It's fun though because he's fighting it tooth and nail with a snowball's chance in hell. Even if he gets his degree I think he'd be hard pressed to find a residency program that would touch him.

I just can't imagine completing medical school with nothing to show for it. It'd be a nightmare. Even skating perilously close to pissing off the wrong people is baffling to me. Doing it with panache is just...amazing.

 

[boogaloo]

Not to feed into rifle, but in case anyone is truly wondering about this issue here's some anecdotal evidence from US MD schools. I knew one person who was dismissed because after failing her 3rd year surg rotation she failed her remediation by 1%, no joke. Up to that point she did fine in med school. Another pulled a rifle during an away OB rotation AFTER having matched to his top OB choice. It was the cherry on top of some other professional issues and he was dismissed just before graduation, lost his residency, was dismissed from the military (mil match), received loan penalties for being dismissed from the military who covered his tuition plus stipends which he now has to pay back with interest, and he's currently working at Target. Take away lesson - don't fu(k-up.

I know a couple of people who were dismissed, and they went against common sense too. OP reminds me of them.

 

[Arkangeloid]

And that will help you how?

Touché

 

[amvet70]

...does it matter what I do in the rotations for specialties I don't care about?

Troll, streampaw??? I don’t know. I’m only trying to answer OP’s original question.

My experience is that the bulk of the MSPE consisted of quotes cut and pasted from third year clinical evals (e.g. works well with team, team player, enthusiastic, hard worker, etc.). What weight any one or two or X number of subpar quotes from any one attending, fellow, resident from outside your areas of interest would have on any one program director at any one program is simply impossible to know. Since along with Step 1, your third year performance will be crucial to getting offers to interview for residencies where you will be expected to work hard with your fellow team members, why would you give a program director any reason to not offer you an interview?

 

[KnuxNole]

If by lifestyle you mean day-long gaming binges, then yes.

Binges that never stop to take care of his needy wife and 3 crying children

And yes, failing surg and/or OBgyn with bad evals CAN hurt your chances at any specialties. PDs read the evals carefully, and make note at the trashing people who fail students or marginally pass students. Remember, it's a joke to pass a rotation if you show up and work hard. You can still pass while doing the bare minimum. Noone would say this, but they hate those students, and at the end, they would put their thoughts on the eval, thus harming the student in the end. You don't want to be "that guy" that everyone laughs at when they leave the room, and people talking **** about how lazy of a resident he'll become.

 

[DermViser]

Nope, that is incorrect. Nothing is lifestyle-friendly during residency. After residency any specialty can be lifestyle-friendly because a doctor can work however much/little he wants to. And your last sentence has my sides splitting. It's not true at all.

If the job description is set by someone else (i.e. a hospital) you DON'T get to negotiate that (i.e. call, number of patients you need to see). If you're in private practice, the other doctors have to be willing to pick up your slack (not likely), or if you're in solo practice, you'll have to pay for ALL overhead (electricity, water, paying the salaries of your secretaries, practice managers, billing specialists, etc.) in order to make your practice viable.

 

[DermViser]

Nope, that is incorrect. Nothing is lifestyle-friendly during residency. After residency any specialty can be lifestyle-friendly because a doctor can work however much/little he wants to. And your last sentence has my sides splitting. It's not true at all.

Wrong again. There are certain residencies that ARE lifestyle friendly during residency. If you don't even know this basic fact, then you definitely have a lot to learn.

 

[DermViser]

Zip it flunkie troll.

Wow, he actually believes that if he just passes or low passes his clerkships, he can just waltz into a lifestyle specialty.

@rifle4802 will be going straight to the bottom quartile of the class.

 

[KnuxNole]

Wrong again. There are certain residencies that ARE lifestyle friendly during residency. If you don't even know this basic fact, then you definitely have a lot to learn.

Not to him, since he'll still have to come in to work like every weekday, and he'll have to like...read books that take away from him getting quickscoped and sniped by noobs. And worse of all, take one or two calls! And people will isolate him if he takes sick days cause a new game got released that he wants to marathon all day, that is overrated and glitched up the wazoo wasting his money.

 

[DermViser]

Not to him, since he'll still have to come in to work like every weekday, and he'll have to like...read books that take away from him getting quickscoped and sniped by noobs. And worse of all, take one or two calls!

It's dingbats like him who think that they can waltz into fields like Radiology, and that it's ok if they just "Pass" OB-Gyn, Surgery, etc. which have "nothing" to do with Radiology bc people will be in awe of his USMLE Step 1 score (he thinks he'll do well on it, based on his ACT score, as he hasn't taken the MCAT yet) .

Then he talks about going into FM or Psych when he doesn't like being around patients according to his other thread.

 

[KnuxNole]

Well, maybe he'll refuse to look at scans of women's body parts, pregnant ladies, and any images related to surgery.

 

[AlmostAnMD]

I don't get it. You clearly hate patients and don't want to be a doctor for the reason most people...at least...kind of...think about, why not be something else? if you just want money and life, be an investment banker. A friend of mine makes ~700k a year and works around 40 hours a week. At least he was honest about why he went into his job. If you're intent on part-time work, do it part time for half the money.

 

[rocketbooster]

I don't get it. You clearly hate patients and don't want to be a doctor for the reason most people...at least...kind of...think about, why not be something else? if you just want money and life, be an investment banker. A friend of mine makes ~700k a year and works around 40 hours a week. At least he was honest about why he went into his job. If you're intent on part-time work, do it part time for half the money.

1) Only a select few can be an investment banker and make bank. The physician career is honestly the most guaranteed, safe bet for making good money of all careers

2) There are a ton of ppl who want limited patient contact. Those are the ppl who do rads and path. Those fields need to be filled, so someone has to do it and obviously it is those who don't want to interact with pts. Not that big of a deal. They're still doing an essential part of medicine.

 

[AlmostAnMD]

I understand that people need to do rads and path

but

I mean seriously

have you read this guy's posts? Something is very wrong with him, he shouldn't be near the medical field at all imo

 

[Arkangeloid]

I understand that people need to do rads and path

but

I mean seriously

have you read this guy's posts? Something is very wrong with him, he shouldn't be near the medical field at all imo

People told me the same thing, and they said I would never get into med school.

What are they to say now?




OP will be fine. Odds are he's just a dude trolling in his study breaks.

 

[DrCharlemagne]

People told me the same thing, and they said I would never get into med school.

What are they to say now?




OP will be fine. Odds are he's just a dude trolling in his study breaks.

Really? You were an arrogant cheater with **sadistic tendencies who only wanted to go into medicine to make money and play video games, and when you were told this was out of line you doubled down* on your toolish behavior with unwarranted condescension toward superior members of the medical community? OP is not being told to stay out of medicine because he's an underdog, he's being told to stay out because he is by his own account a deplorable waste of carbon.

** brain fart

 

[Arkangeloid]

Really? You were an arrogant cheater with masochistic tendencies who only wanted to go into medicine to make money and play video games, and when you were told this was out of line you doubled down* on your toolish behavior with unwarranted condescension toward superior members of the medical community? OP is not being told to stay out of medicine because he's an underdog, he's being told to stay out because he is by his own account a deplorable waste of carbon.

I stand corrected.

 

[Arkangeloid]

Binges that never stop to take care of his needy wife and 3 crying children

And yes, failing surg and/or OBgyn with bad evals CAN hurt your chances at any specialties. PDs read the evals carefully, and make note at the trashing people who fail students or marginally pass students. Remember, it's a joke to pass a rotation if you show up and work hard. You can still pass while doing the bare minimum. Noone would say this, but they hate those students, and at the end, they would put their thoughts on the eval, thus harming the student in the end. You don't want to be "that guy" that everyone laughs at when they leave the room, and people talking **** about how lazy of a resident he'll become.

I think this is true. The other day I overheard two GS (specialty changed to protect the critical) attendings talking about their M3s, and here's how the conversation went.

Attending 1: Our student evaluations are due in a few days.
Attending 2: Can you believe Julie [name changed to protect the lazy] wants to go into Neurosurgery? I flat out told her she needs to pick a new specialty, her work on this rotation was abysmal.
Attending 1: Do you want to fail her? I can't see her ever becoming a good physician.
Attending 2: No we can't fail her. If we do, the Dean will make us work with her on weekends to remediate her, and I already don't see my wife and kids enough.
Attending 1: Let's give her a pass then.

 

[rifle4802]

Troll, streampaw??? I don’t know. I’m only trying to answer OP’s original question.

My experience is that the bulk of the MSPE consisted of quotes cut and pasted from third year clinical evals (e.g. works well with team, team player, enthusiastic, hard worker, etc.). What weight any one or two or X number of subpar quotes from any one attending, fellow, resident from outside your areas of interest would have on any one program director at any one program is simply impossible to know. Since along with Step 1, your third year performance will be crucial to getting offers to interview for residencies where you will be expected to work hard with your fellow team members, why would you give a program director any reason to not offer you an interview?

That's not the point at all. The point is that if I don't need a glowing evaluation from the surgery staff because surgery is dead last on my list of career interests, there is no reason for me "go the extra mile" during this rotation. I can save that for the several other specialties I want to match into.

 

[rifle4802]

Binges that never stop to take care of his needy wife and 3 crying children

And yes, failing surg and/or OBgyn with bad evals CAN hurt your chances at any specialties. PDs read the evals carefully, and make note at the trashing people who fail students or marginally pass students. Remember, it's a joke to pass a rotation if you show up and work hard. You can still pass while doing the bare minimum. Noone would say this, but they hate those students, and at the end, they would put their thoughts on the eval, thus harming the student in the end. You don't want to be "that guy" that everyone laughs at when they leave the room, and people talking **** about how lazy of a resident he'll become.

"Harming the student" when it comes time to apply for surgery or ob/gyn, not for other residencies. And yes, people have made it abundantly clear that you can't fail a rotation. We can move past this point now. But the majority of posters here are suggesting that I can do second-rate work in these rotations and still be fine for the specialties that I am interested in. That's what I was asking.

 

[rifle4802]

If the job description is set by someone else (i.e. a hospital) you DON'T get to negotiate that (i.e. call, number of patients you need to see). If you're in private practice, the other doctors have to be willing to pick up your slack (not likely), or if you're in solo practice, you'll have to pay for ALL overhead (electricity, water, paying the salaries of your secretaries, practice managers, billing specialists, etc.) in order to make your practice viable.

Wrong yet again! In our line of work, supply will never approach demand. We can negotiate whatever terms we want. There are even locum tenens opportunities that let you do literally whatever you want. Any specialty is a lifestyle specialty if you want it to be. Part-time doctors are everywhere in this country, and that's a fact.

 

[rifle4802]

I don't get it. You clearly hate patients and don't want to be a doctor for the reason most people...at least...kind of...think about, why not be something else? if you just want money and life, be an investment banker. A friend of mine makes ~700k a year and works around 40 hours a week. At least he was honest about why he went into his job. If you're intent on part-time work, do it part time for half the money.

Your friend can't possibly be real. I-bankers work like dogs and do not approach anything near 700K/year. It is routine for them to hit 100 hours per week and working both weekends, with an hourly wage of around $25-30. Per hour, the money in investment banking is absolute crap compared to medicine. The only possible advantage you could argue is the age at which you start earning, but it's nowhere near enough to offset the cons.

 

[DrCharlemagne]

But the majority of posters here are suggesting that I can do second-rate work in these rotations and still be fine for the specialties that I am interested in. That's what I was asking.

Do you ever come to the conclusion that you were wrong? Because "the vast majority" of this thread came no where close to this conclusion.

 

[KnuxNole]

"Harming the student" when it comes time to apply for surgery or ob/gyn, not for other residencies. And yes, people have made it abundantly clear that you can't fail a rotation. We can move past this point now. But the majority of posters here are suggesting that I can do second-rate work in these rotations and still be fine for the specialties that I am interested in. That's what I was asking.

To answer your question, it will hurt your chances at a good amount of places. Yes, some may place less weight, but there won't be any program that would straight up ignore 3rd year grades/evals(which are WAY more important than 1st/2nd year grades). If there is any evidence of you doing second rate work showing up in the eval, they would easily pass you up for an applicant with a clean application without thinking. Noone cares that the rotation is not a field you want to go to. They would expect ALL rotations to have strong work equally.


It CAN affect other residencies in a heartbeat, that is not even a doubt. Remember, the EVALS are read for all rotations by PDs. If they see a black cloud eval from surg and/or OB that is stunning, they might feel a bit hesitant compared to someone who has glowing evals. And as specialties that are notorious for ripping a new one for people who aren't ready to come to work hard and work long hours, they have no filter. While OBGYN's reputation isn't always true, you never, ever want to mess with a scorned woman.

 

[HLxDrummer]

Thank you. That is all I wanted to know and needed to hear. That's what I thought myself, but I just wanted to make sure.

Would be pretty dumb if your performance in a rotation you have no interest in affected your shot at specialties you actually care about.

Why would that be dumb? That is like saying you barely passed college.. but that was english and math so it shouldn't matter to get into med school. Your PD isn't going to want to work with someone who only works hard when it is something they care about.. You think path/FM residency is going to be rainbows and butterflies? You will not always be doing things you think are relevant/care about, but your PD is going to expect you to work hard regardless.

That said, I'm sure if you get a low pass with average evals that you will be fine.

By the way, I know I wanna do cardiac path so I just skipped pharm, neuro, psych, and my physical diagnosis class. The school didn't have a problem with it. Skipped it on step 1, too.

 

[KinesiologyNerd]

Wrong yet again! In our line of work, supply will never approach demand. We can negotiate whatever terms we want. There are even locum tenens opportunities that let you do literally whatever you want. Any specialty is a lifestyle specialty if you want it to be. Part-time doctors are everywhere in this country, and that's a fact.

What is your line of work? You're clearly not describing medicine.

 

[DermViser]

I think this is true. The other day I overheard two GS (specialty changed to protect the critical) attendings talking about their M3s, and here's how the conversation went.

Attending 1: Our student evaluations are due in a few days.
Attending 2: Can you believe Julie [name changed to protect the lazy] wants to go into Neurosurgery? I flat out told her she needs to pick a new specialty, her work on this rotation was abysmal.
Attending 1: Do you want to fail her? I can't see her ever becoming a good physician.
Attending 2: No we can't fail her. If we do, the Dean will make us work with her on weekends to remediate her, and I already don't see my wife and kids enough.
Attending 1: Let's give her a pass then.

Hence why a "Pass" can be the kiss of death on the Dean's Letter (or now known as the MSPE).

 

[DermViser]

"Harming the student" when it comes time to apply for surgery or ob/gyn, not for other residencies. And yes, people have made it abundantly clear that you can't fail a rotation. We can move past this point now. But the majority of posters here are suggesting that I can do second-rate work in these rotations and still be fine for the specialties that I am interested in. That's what I was asking.

You are so abundantly wrong, now I know you are trolling. Your grades on Surgery and OB-Gyn are not just limited to entering those fields. It demonstrates a pattern of clinical competence (or lack thereof), work ethic, and ability to get along with others. The excuse of "I'm not going into that specialty" as to why you only got a "Pass" on those rotations, will not fly on your residency interview. Trust me, every medical student has thought this same way as you do. It's nothing new. You are not the first to think this way. Attendings and residency PDs know the game.

Your ability to do well on rotations that you don't like, like OB-Gyn or Surgery, speak volumes about you to residency faculty, bc even if you enter a specialty you like, during residency, there will be rotation months in which you will have to do things you don't like.

Your ability to still do well, even when the work sucks, is an important characteristic.

 

[DermViser]

What is your line of work? You're clearly not describing medicine.

His line of work is "Premed" who hasn't taken his MCAT.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

I think this is true. The other day I overheard two GS (specialty changed to protect the critical) attendings talking about their M3s, and here's how the conversation went.

Attending 1: Our student evaluations are due in a few days.
Attending 2: Can you believe Julie [name changed to protect the lazy] wants to go into Neurosurgery? I flat out told her she needs to pick a new specialty, her work on this rotation was abysmal.
Attending 1: Do you want to fail her? I can't see her ever becoming a good physician.
Attending 2: No we can't fail her. If we do, the Dean will make us work with her on weekends to remediate her, and I already don't see my wife and kids enough.
Attending 1: Let's give her a pass then.

Yup. It's exceptionally difficult to fail a student at my program.

Even giving a mediocre eval usually prompts a meeting with the clerkship director.

The last student who failed the rotation (exceptionally deservedly so I may say. I can't even tell any of the stories because they are so specific that they'd be immediately identifiable) went to the dean and threatened to sue. Fast forward months and several meetings with attendings and the clerkship director and the deans and his grade was ultimately changed to a marginal pass.

The last time I gave a negative evaluation I ended up having to have 3 meetings about it and had I don't even know how many emails.

Evals here are a joke. One of my very few complaints about my program. Entitled students and the school gives out close to 50% honors.

 

[DermViser]

Yup. It's exceptionally difficult to fail a student at my program.

Even giving a mediocre eval usually prompts a meeting with the clerkship director.

The last student who failed the rotation (exceptionally deservedly so I may say. I can't even tell any of the stories because they are so specific that they'd be immediately identifiable) went to the dean and threatened to sue. Fast forward months and several meetings with attendings and the clerkship director and the deans and his grade was ultimately changed to a marginal pass.

The last time I gave a negative evaluation I ended up having to have 3 meetings about it and had I don't even know how many emails.

Evals here are a joke. One of my very few complaints about my program. Entitled students and the school gives out close to 50% honors.

Yup, at that point the school just wants to push them out with their degree so they become "someone else's" problem. This is exactly what residency programs are trying to snuff out. Hence the intense scrutiny of MSPEs to find any red flags, whether that be grades or comments.

 

[Nasrudin]

Yup. It's exceptionally difficult to fail a student at my program.

Even giving a mediocre eval usually prompts a meeting with the clerkship director.

The last student who failed the rotation (exceptionally deservedly so I may say. I can't even tell any of the stories because they are so specific that they'd be immediately identifiable) went to the dean and threatened to sue. Fast forward months and several meetings with attendings and the clerkship director and the deans and his grade was ultimately changed to a marginal pass.

The last time I gave a negative evaluation I ended up having to have 3 meetings about it and had I don't even know how many emails.

Evals here are a joke. One of my very few complaints about my program. Entitled students and the school gives out close to 50% honors.

Wow. That's unfortunate. But...I guess if I believed in the infallibility or even just marginal consistency of attending evaluation I would probably more disgusted by your report. Maybe it's these same entitled idiots who go one to give random assertive evaluations sight unseen as attendings thinking their own assinine, egostistical sentiments qualify as evaluation.

I think we all agree that idiot clerks are walking themselves into a bad situation and should be dealt with harshly. You have to grow up sometime. So in that sense I'm in your camp. I generally got luke warm positive to great comments, but one mediocre one. I can assure you I am remarkably consistent and was in every case the same guy. So where's the measure of objectivity in all this?

But screw all that. I'm graduating.

What I really am curious about is what happens to these types of people in residency? Is that where the rubber hits the road?

 

[rifle4802]

Yup. It's exceptionally difficult to fail a student at my program.

Even giving a mediocre eval usually prompts a meeting with the clerkship director.

The last student who failed the rotation (exceptionally deservedly so I may say. I can't even tell any of the stories because they are so specific that they'd be immediately identifiable) went to the dean and threatened to sue. Fast forward months and several meetings with attendings and the clerkship director and the deans and his grade was ultimately changed to a marginal pass.

The last time I gave a negative evaluation I ended up having to have 3 meetings about it and had I don't even know how many emails.

Evals here are a joke. One of my very few complaints about my program. Entitled students and the school gives out close to 50% honors.

End thread. If this doesn't make it plain as day that you don't need to be a superstar in rotations you deem meaningless, I don't know what will.

But yeah, I'm sure I need that "honors" from my supervising surgeon to match into pathology.

 

[Nasrudin]

End thread. If this doesn't make it plain as day that you don't need to be a superstar in rotations you deem meaningless, I don't know what will.

But yeah, I'm sure I need that "honors" from my supervising surgeon to match into pathology.

Shhhhh. The grown-ups are talking. Go play troll.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Moving to Pre Allo and Closing.