top med school = harder to honor rotations?

[premd]

Just curious -- is it harder to honor your clinical rotations at a top medical school? Academics aside, I have noticed that many of the students at these elite schools are also extremely "assertive." Personally, I tend to become kind of withdrawn when I am surrounded by these types of people.

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[Law2Doc]

Just curious -- is it harder to honor your clinical rotations at a top medical school? Academics aside, I have noticed that many of the students at these elite schools are also extremely "assertive." Personally, I tend to become kind of withdrawn when I am surrounded by these types of people.

Clinical skill abilities are pretty hard to screen for, so it is likely that every school is going run the gamut in terms of better or worse. Sure, the top schools tend to have students who do a bit better on tests, and thus may do a bit better on the shelf exams, which is a part of that grade. But a lot of clinical skills are not so much "asertiveness" as being able to talk to people, have some finesse. Most of the people I know who are pollished and have the gift of gab are not geniuses, just more comfortable in their own skin. I suspect you find tons of these folks at every school. If you are a wallflower at Harvard you would be a wallflower everywhere.

 

[njbmd]

Moving to Clinical Rotations Forum for comment.

 

[velo]

I would speculate its marginally more difficult to honor rotations at top tier schools. No matter the overall quality of the students, grades are going to eventually fall into a more or less normal distribution-- someone has to get honors, high-pass, and pass. Since clinical grades are so subjective, at the end of the day you are judged against the quality of the other students the evaluator has worked with. If the overall quality of students, on average, is higher it will be more difficult to distinguish yourself as an honors student.

 

[lord_jeebus]

I think the short answer is yes, but much more significant is the criteria used to assign honors.

I think it would be much easier to get honors at a top 10 school that gives them to 50% of the class than a school with no significant reputation that only gives them to the top 10-15%.

 

[quideam]

Agree with the above... i go to a "top 10" school, and various rotations have very different criteria for how many students get each grade. For instance, in surgery, there is no cutoff or set % for each grade, and in medicine, about 35% will get honors and another 40% or so will get HP. A lot of times, however, what the school considers "average" shelf scores are actually above the national mean, because our students are expected to be "better", so while you're not necessarily competing against other students, the standards for you as an individual are tougher.

If you're the kind of person who, as you described, tends to become 'withdrawn' when surrounded by more assertive people, then that's something you really need to work on regardless what school you go to. The reality is, these kinds of students are abundant in all schools, and of course even morer so in certain specialties... i have friends at other medical schools, and i don't think that the overall makeup of personalities is so different from the ones at mine. Just a thought 🙂.

- Quid

 

[QuinnB]

Totally agree with above. No matter what med school you go to, being withdrawn will hurt you.

Re: competitiveness, it's a crapshoot. There are some places near where I went to undergrad that are 2nd or 3rd tier medical schools, that are insanely competitive. Some friends in the caribbean tell me (AUC, St. George, and others) that their schools are tremendously competitive, although not typically "cut throat" in that doing better than everyone is very difficult, but no one is stabbing you in the back. This is not my firsthand experience though, so maybe someone can (in)validate this.

 

[Dr JPH]

I think the difficulty in honoring a clinical rotation is based moreso on the service/attending/residents you have as opposed to where you go to school.

I rotated with students from several different schools, including a top ten school, and the grading was based on HOW the particular attending graded.

Then if there is a shelf or school comprised exam at the end of the rotation that factors into the grade.

Lots of criteria to consider...enough so that making a gross generalization isnt possible IMHO.

 

[jennyboo]

Just curious -- is it harder to honor your clinical rotations at a top medical school?

No. Approximately the same percentages of honors vs high pass vs pass probably apply similarly no matter what the school.

I have noticed that many of the students at these elite schools are also extremely "assertive." Personally, I tend to become kind of withdrawn when I am surrounded by these types of people.

What I have found out is this....

If you're in an environment where everyone else is "assertive" then in order to succeed you will probably have to challenge yourself to be assertive as well. You may not naturally be assertive, but you can LEARN to be more assertive over time.

Most people probably get kinda withdrawn in the company of highly aggressive peers. However, this doesn't mean you have no hope -- it just means that you, like the rest of the world, can rise to the occasion and do well.

 

[TaiShan]

I did not go to a top 10 schol but I remember someone from one such school (WashU?? JHU?) said that 70%?? of students get ALL honors in their clinical rotations.

 

[lord_jeebus]

I did not go to a top 10 schol but I remember someone from one such school (WashU?? JHU?) said that 70%?? of students get ALL honors in their clinical rotations.

haha the Surgery residency director at my school has ranted about a particular top 10 school that gives out so many honors that he considers them meaningless. Perhaps it is the same school (neither WashU not JHU).