surgical residency - passing vs honoring rotation

[pedsurg]

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I am of the unfortunate group of people who find their love during the first rotation of 3rd year. Without having medicine behind me, the surgery NBME exam was not easy and so I'm looking at a pass (vs. high pass/honors) for the clerkship. (My school has NBME percentiles as cutoffs for high pass and pass regardless of evaluations on the wards)

Do residency programs consider order of clerkship in evaluating 3rd year performance? Or am I screwed?

 

[billybob746]

of course not. they grade you are given is scaled at your institution such that you are compared to everyone in the five years previously who took surgery first. if you get a pass, that's how you compared to your peers doing the same rotation at the same time.

 

[DrSnips]

of course not. they grade you are given is scaled at your institution such that you are compared to everyone in the five years previously who took surgery first. if you get a pass, that's how you compared to your peers doing the same rotation at the same time.

While this is true, you are far from being unable to obtain a surgery residency because of this one pass. Make sure that you do well on all other rotations and especially on your surgery sub I, which you must take early in 4th year to get the grade in on your transcript in time. Also, keep in mind that while surgery as a whole is relatively competitive, the lower end programs are not so competitive. I know one resident who wanted to do anesthesia and ended up scrambling into a surgery program (that's how undesirable some of the lower end surgery programs are). Taking step 2ck earlier and acing it will also help.

 

[duckie99]

I think it definitely doesn't look good and some programs won't look highly on it. But it won't sink you. The best way to get around a subpar grade in a core rotation is to get a fantastic LOR from your attending on that rotation. Also do well on your sub-i and away if you chose to do one.

 

[evilbooyaa]

Dude, it's a pass. Assuming you don't have terrible other stuff (Step 1 mainly) you'll match into a surgical residency. It may not be a top 10 surgical residency, but you'll be OK.

Consider the fact that honors is supposed to be the top 10% of the country. Now consider what happens to anyone in the bottom 90% who wants to go into surgery. It's not like ALL of them don't match or self-select into FM.