Unhealthy obsession with grades

[romeosterp]

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[BadHorse]

Okay so today I found out that I got a B on one of my assignments in a class. Note that this is a B in a single assignment in the class, not even a b in the entire class (although it is my first grade for the class). Anyway, I was so upset after learning this that I began imaging getting straight B's this semester and having my GPA plummet, which is an obvious overreaction. I knew that it was so stupid to be so sad over a single b on one presentation and yet, I couldn't shake myself out of it for a couple hours.

I'm kind of worried as to what this says about me. Will I really be able to handle the stress of medical school? How am I gonna respond when making a mistake can mean endangering the lives of others? And most importantly, how do i stop freaking out so much about something so stupid??

Honestly, if you're going to invoke Burnett's law against yourself you're never going to make it as a doctor.

Grades are part of the game, we're all hyper-competitive and sometimes we let it get the best of us. Just try to keep it in perspective and make sure to blow off steam on a regular basis and you'll be fine. Doctors take themselves seriously because their decisions matter... this isn't an indication that you'll be a terrible doctor.

 

[juliedi]

Honestly, if you're going to invoke Burnett's law against yourself you're never going to make it as a doctor.

Grades are part of the game, we're all hyper-competitive and sometimes we let it get the best of us. Just try to keep it in perspective and make sure to blow off steam on a regular basis and you'll be fine. Doctors take themselves seriously because their decisions matter... this isn't an indication that you'll be a terrible doctor.

👍 to the bolded. Best use of Burnett's law I've seen.

OP, I agree with this advice too. Just try and relax and not worry about it.

 

[deleted357625]

I make one bad grade, then i calculate what I'll need for the class to make an A.

Just being on top of things.

 

[premedguy1]

This behavior is healthy to a certain degree. It is good that you are concerned about your grades. Just don't let it get out of hand. I think kind of like torshi. I know how many points I can lose during the semester and still get an A, and it is always in the back of my mind.

 

[Monocles]

Whoa there. Take a deep breath and relax. Go outside and take the day off. Go do something fun and enjoyable. Stop worrying about your grades. If you're going into an existential crisis just from having one B on a single assignment, I can't imagine the pain you'll go through when you realise that you can't save 100% of your patients as a doctor despite your best efforts.

 

[cowme]

Okay so today I found out that I got a B on one of my assignments in a class. Note that this is a B in a single assignment in the class, not even a b in the entire class (although it is my first grade for the class). Anyway, I was so upset after learning this that I began imaging getting straight B's this semester and having my GPA plummet, which is an obvious overreaction. I knew that it was so stupid to be so sad over a single b on one presentation and yet, I couldn't shake myself out of it for a couple hours.

I'm kind of worried as to what this says about me. Will I really be able to handle the stress of medical school? How am I gonna respond when making a mistake can mean endangering the lives of others? And most importantly, how do i stop freaking out so much about something so stupid??

I'm going to assume you've never faced any adversity in your life, if getting a B on an assignment is really causing you this much trouble. Imperfection, mistakes and disappointments are a way of life. Chill the F out, or your future will eat you alive.

 

[getdown]

If you react this way now you may end up killing yourself after your first test in med school. Seriously, there's a 50% chance you'll be at the bottom half of your class in med school and a 80% chance you're only getting the mean in your classes. Think about that for a moment.

 

[FrkyBgStok]

my wife says I have a god complex and that i am full of myself. she also says i am a workaholic because I would rather work than play. i am an egomaniac and a narcissist. I admit it, but we each have our faults right.

i love to hear people talk about me and think i am crazy for everything I do and for the way that i am. if this is not a thread designed explicitly for that purpose, my bad. disregard.

but if i my senses are right (and they usually are), the OP is ridiculous and:

 

[mafunk]

I think some of the posters are being a bit harsh with the op.

Listen, so you are stressing over a B. That is not good but at lease you recognize that you have an unhealthy obsession with your grades.

I sort of know where you are coming from. I got a B on my first Chem quiz and I was pissed at myself. I stewed for a little, then made the decision to kick but going forward - have gotten 95-100% on everything since.

The suggestion that someone made to calculate what you need to get an A in class after earning a B is a good one.

Also, it is important for you to learn to put things in perspective so that you don't waste your precious energy over worrying. I can over worry sometimes too. This is what I did - I started an anonymous blog. I only post on the blog if I'm over-stressing or hanging on to something stupid. I pour all my feelings and stress into the blog writeup and commit to letting go of the worry. It really works. I find that I rarely have to post there cause things just don't stress me out since I started it.

 

[halethsonofhama]

best thing to do in a situation like this is to browse through SDN for hours at a time hoping to find people worse than yourself and then post a comment saying something along the lines of...

"best thing to do in a situation like this is to browse through SDN for hours at a time hoping to find people worse than yourself and then post a comment saying something along the lines of..."

It works everytime

 

[StudyShy]

I have an excel sheet of my classes. It automatically tells me what I need to get for an "A" based on my exams and such. That's slightly obsessive but better than constantly calculating.

 

[gatorade848]

just chill, its only one assignment (i assume not a midterm) as a premed you gotta learn how to hold an umbrella above your head and let all the bs glance slide off instead of becoming soaked in it. I too sometime worry too much about my grades though i kinda have a legit reason: slacked off 1st two years of college, trying to get As for the past two years so I can get the highest gpa possible before I graduate and apply this summer. most of the time I just go play some call of duty or look at my other classes for comfort.

ex. in biochem i got below average on the 1st test, I kinda freaked out because I want an A in the class. I learned to chill, relax and study harder/more efficiently. I ended up getting 98 on all the tests afterwards and got A in the class. This semester I got the average (67) on my 2nd genetic test. I too freaked out a bit, but I chilled and remembered I was in the same situation in biochem, so its no big deal.

 

[wlee43]

I got a freakin B!!!

 

[HAV000]

I have an excel sheet of my classes. It automatically tells me what I need to get for an "A" based on my exams and such. That's slightly obsessive but better than constantly calculating.

+1👍

 

[IHeartNerds]

If you get into medical school, and enter a clinical residency (ie not path or rads), you will in all likelihood, by accident, KILL SOMEONE during your career. As will we all.

All things in perspective, bro. 👍

 

[Law2Doc]

If you react this way now you may end up killing yourself after your first test in med school. Seriously, there's a 50% chance you'll be at the bottom half of your class in med school and a 80% chance you're only getting the mean in your classes. Think about that for a moment.

Agreed. In med school EVERYBODY you are competing with got their share of A's in college. All of the people that pushed you up the bell curve in college will be gone -- weeded out by the admissions process. So there's a very good chance that in med school you are going to be average or below, forever doing worse than your target, no matter how hard you feel like you are working. For folks who never faced adversity it's an emotional roller coaster. For folks who have had ups and downs in life, it ends up being less of an ordeal. Consider this B useful in this respect. A wake up call. Once your head is on straight, you will realize that if you do your best each time the actual grade is inconsequential.

I also would point out that once you get to the part of med school where there is a ton of subjectivity in grading (the clinical years), you may find you are getting less impressive evals simply because you didn't give the right first impression. It's much harder to stomach if you are very grade-centric. Again doing your best is all you can do.

 

[Law2Doc]

If you get into medical school, and enter a clinical residency (ie not path or rads), you will in all likelihood, by accident, KILL SOMEONE during your career. As will we all.

All things in perspective, bro. 👍

In residency most residents will either kill someone or at least make their situation worse, but it won't be by accident, it will be by inexperience, and sometimes simply by bad luck. It goes with the territory -- you try to make good decisions, but you are always acting with inadequate information and a dearth of knowledge. It has very little to do with how you did in med school though.

In both path and rads you can kill people or at least make them worse. You miss the early cancer on the CT or in the path slide, that patient is hosed. Also most rads programs have IR these days, so you will be sticking needles and drains and grafts into folks, basically performing vascular surgery, which poses plenty of risks.

 

[Ignatius M.D.]

A B?!?!?!?!?!

 

[IHeartNerds]

In residency most residents will either kill someone or at least make their situation worse, but it won't be by accident, it will be by inexperience, and sometimes simply by bad luck. It goes with the territory -- you try to make good decisions, but you are always acting with inadequate information and a dearth of knowledge. It has very little to do with how you did in med school though.

In both path and rads you can kill people or at least make them worse. You miss the early cancer on the CT or in the path slide, that patient is hosed. Also most rads programs have IR these days, so you will be sticking needles and drains and grafts into folks, basically performing vascular surgery, which poses plenty of risks.

If you think "missing the early cancer" evokes the same feeling as a patient dying on the table because your hand slipped and a ronguer went thru their high cervical spine, you're obviously a radiologist, and not a surgeon. 👎

 

[Law2Doc]

If you think "missing the early cancer" evokes the same feeling as a patient dying on the table because your hand slipped and a ronguer went thru their high cervical spine, you're obviously a radiologist, and not a surgeon. 👎

When the patient dies on the table under general anesthesia, he doesn't have to suffer. When a patient comes back to his doctor a year later and is told he will be dead in a year by something that is going to continue to progress and make him rapidly sicker because somebody missed a treatable diagnosis, he suffers. That's actually probably worse in terms of patient impact, although maybe as a physician you beat yourself up more when it's an immediate cause and effect -- I don't know. But that wasn't really my point. My point was that you seemed to be excluding two specialties from running the risk of "killing" people and that's simply misinformed. Radiologists and pathologists see more studies a day than surgeons see patients, so the number of life impacting errors is actually going to be greater. If you think the odds of injuring someone during your training are high in "clinical medicine", the odds are going to be even higher in these diagnostic fields.

 

[muhali3]

my wife says I have a god complex and that i am full of myself. she also says i am a workaholic because I would rather work than play. i am an egomaniac and a narcissist. I admit it, but we each have our faults right.

i love to hear people talk about me and think i am crazy for everything I do and for the way that i am. if this is not a thread designed explicitly for that purpose, my bad. disregard.

but if i my senses are right (and they usually are), the OP is ridiculous and:
...

Is this you?

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svhRi_6dUfs[/YOUTUBE]

 

[CerebroDad]

OP, like others have said, you won't always meet expectations (you are human after all). Two things to help you cope with that:

1) Learn from the experience so as to improve. For example, if you are going to be tested on material that pertains to whatever you got wrong on the assignment, review it so you get it right on the test.

2) Always do your best, and try to exceed expectations whenever you can (e.g. do extra credit assignments, plan a bit of extra study time, finish things before the deadline instead of at the last minute). I imagine that physicians have a similar attitude; they give 110% every day and so bad outcomes are constantly being outweighed by good ones. You can't be great every time; you just have to shoot to be great overall.

 

[theWUbear]

 

[Tapepsi]

.

 

[Immutef]

And most importantly, how do i stop freaking out so much about something so stupid??

drink. heavily.

 

[kansaskid]

I used to be like this until life caught up with me and I had to rearrange my priorities! Good grades are important, but all you can do is your best. Are you doing your best? If not, change your strategy until you are! If you are, then stop worrying about it. If you can't stop worrying about, even if you are doing your very best, consider getting professional help. Sometimes they can help you work through repetitive negative thought patterns. Worked for some of my OCD friends. Good luck!