Struggling DO student considering LOA after finishing off M2. Need advice

Started by Kd Ha
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Kd Ha

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Hello All,
I have finished my M2 year. Throughout my med school, I have been undergoing family (immigration) issues and when they come up my focus gets split resulting in poor performance. After this had initially happened I thought our struggles were done however in my last semester things got much worse. This resulted in splitting my focus and I did poorly on the first midterms of two of my courses and I was not able to salvage those with final and had to remediate those two courses.

Prior to this I was on a good schedule for board prep however this threw me off significantly. I took remediation exam for those two courses and this took up two weeks of my dedicated study time. I was also recently diagnosed w/ ADHD and am getting help with that as well. Rn, I am worried about failing Comlex/step 1 and would like to know if it would be advisable to take a LOA? Additionally, I am hoping to get a residency in IM, Neuro, PM&R and was wondering if taking an LOA would prevent me from landing a residency.

Thank you.