Should one keep going if...

[medhopefull1984]

Hi all,

So something I have been contemplating over the past few weeks is whether I actually have what it takes to succeed in medicine. This post is not meant as a means of finding a "shoulder to cry on" but rather perhaps some incite into whether someone in my position should actually consider dropping out.

I find that the curriculum involves pass-fail exams and though I have not failed any exams, I feel I am sorely lacking in the necessary knowledge base needed to successfully complete clerkship. I find the study methods needed are very different than were needed for undergrad and preparing for the MCAT. Scoring in 520+ range on the MCAT and a 3.9+ GPA  apparently provided me with a false sense of preparedness in terms of readiness for medicine. I have virtually no life outside of school as I dedicate significant amount of time to studying but my grades do not reflect that. Speaking to faculty leaves me more confused and frustrated than I was before the meeting. To make things worse these are not just my teachers but people I will be working with in the future. It may seem cliche, but I genuinely pursued medicine to help people and do good but it seems that the intellectual ability needed for succeed in this field is something I am sorely lacking. 

With the number of people remaining unmatched going up compounded with my shitty performance, would you consider bailing while still ahead (or at least not that behind?) in terms of the time and money invested in a potentially less than ideal (to put it mildly) outcome?

I would appreciate if anyone who has either felt similarly currently or in the past to perhaps share your thoughts.

Thanks

 

[lovemedicinesomuch]

11 minutes ago, medhopefull1984 said:

Hi all,

So something I have been contemplating over the past few weeks is whether I actually have what it takes to succeed in medicine. This post is not meant as a means of finding a "shoulder to cry on" but rather perhaps some incite into whether someone in my position should actually consider dropping out.

I find that the curriculum involves pass-fail exams and though I have not failed any exams, I feel I am sorely lacking in the necessary knowledge base needed to successfully complete clerkship. I find the study methods needed are very different than were needed for undergrad and preparing for the MCAT. Scoring in 520+ range on the MCAT and a 3.9+ GPA  apparently provided me with a false sense of preparedness in terms of readiness for medicine. I have virtually no life outside of school as I dedicate significant amount of time to studying but my grades do not reflect that. Speaking to faculty leaves me more confused and frustrated than I was before the meeting. To make things worse these are not just my teachers but people I will be working with in the future. It may seem cliche, but I genuinely pursued medicine to help people and do good but it seems that the intellectual ability needed for succeed in this field is something I am sorely lacking. 

With the number of people remaining unmatched going up compounded with my shitty performance, would you consider bailing while still ahead (or at least not that behind?) in terms of the time and money invested in a potentially less than ideal (to put it mildly) outcome?

I would appreciate if anyone who has either felt similarly currently or in the past to perhaps share your thoughts.

Thanks

 

 I have similar feeling and I always feel inadequate - I am going through CaRMS right now and I genuinely hope I match after all effort I put in.

I always feel that I try my best, yet sometimes I am not able to perform up to my expectations. Medicine is very humbling. I can't be outstanding in every area, despite really wanting to be outstanding in all areas.  I hope people understand that you cant be good at everything in medicine.

[frenchpress]

Medicine certainly isn’t for everyone. I think it’s a major flaw of the system that the opportunity cost to explore medicine is so high, because it really does discourage people from quitting even when they realize it isn’t for them. I do know one person who quit in clerkship, and it worked out well for them. That said, there are a lot of areas of medicine, and some environments and require skill sets will suit different people better than others. Very often people can find an area they like and can succeed in.  

Clinical Medicine is significantly different from academic medicine. If all you’ve ever done is learn in an undergraduate setting, it should not be surprising that those skills do not immediately transfer upon starting clerkship (although it often is surprising, because this isn’t well emphasized at all in the selection process or early pre-clinical training). I think it’s pretty normal to feel out of your element in clerkship - for many of us, we’re basically total novices.  Not just novices in the material, but novices in how to learn in that setting. That can be a really disorienting experience when you’re someone who’s used to succeeding, and to having mastery over how to learn in some other context. I have been amazed during clerkship at how dumb and overwhelmed I can feel despite having done my best to prepare for a rotation, and I am someone with advanced degrees and a background in teaching and science education. @lovemedicinesomuch Humbling is definitely the right word for it.

That experience alone I don’t think means you aren’t cut out for medicine OP.  Most people can and do improve at this over time. Where are you in your training? Have you found any areas of medicine (clinical or non-clinical that appeal to you?). I’d be curious to know more about what it is you’re hearing from your preceptors that’s leaving you confused and frustrated. 

Edited February 18, 2021 by frenchpress

[1D7]

About 95% of Canadian graduates match after the two rounds. Of those 5% who are unmatched, a proportion either have red flags (i.e. repeatedly failed courses) or were aiming for highly competitive specialties without adequately backing up, and even a good proportion of them will match the subsequent year. You can feel assured that even if you are well below average in every single way, chances are you will still match the first round if you apply broadly and backup.

I think if you are spending all your time studying and not doing well, there is probably some issue with your study method and you should aim to change. Regardless, as mentioned above, clinical medicine will utilize a different skill set than what you learn in medical school. I wouldn't get too worried unless you're failing or borderline failing multiple exams.

[shikimate]

What you feel is completely normal. You are doing fine; need proof? You just said you haven't failed any exams.

Some people call it imposter syndrome, kinda funny name but good description. When you congregate with the top 1% of course it'll amplify your weaknesses. 

Here's an analogy, even the worst NBA player will probably beat out 99.9% of your average joe basketball player out there.

Now here's the serious stuff:

the volume of material is a problem, especially stuff you haven't covered in undergrad. So the key is to find a study method that quickly infuses the high yield material. There are numerous YT videos and channels and books and stuff about this. For example osmosis is a good YT channel worth checking out.

You wanna maximize every minute of your studying. Your goal is not to score 99% on your exam, your goal is to score enough points so you pass and have a margin of safety (aka if pass mark is 60, don't aim for 65, aim for like 70-75%). If you try to score 99% on your royal college exam you'll die studying.

Here is a corollary, if you play baseball, are you going to swing for HR every time? Answer is no, you wanna have a reasonable average and play for other aspects of the game (eg. sacrifice, not ground into double play etc). If an easy pitch come along, go for it, but you gotta play the "game" "holistically".

So clerkship is very different, a lot more people skills, soft skills, "thinking on your feet" skills. Very rarely do they fail someone purely on medical knowledge.

Let me give u an example. Once an attending (whom I have very low opinion of) was asking everyone on the team causes of some arrhythmia (who cares). People before me have already  answered stuff like drugs, congenital, lytes abnormality, etc. So I basically had no answer. I realized nobody have mentioned autoimmune, so I mentioned "autoimmune disease" without specifying anything. He was surprised I "knew" this answer because he went on this big blurb about how some autoimmune disease could cause myocarditis and pleuritis and EKG abnormality blah blah blah. I HAD NO CLUE ABOUT THE ANSWER lol, just goes to show you how bit of street smarts goes a long way in clerkship lol.

Lastly, the worse people in clerkship are the tools who think they know everything and make sure everyone around them knows that. I've seen one such d****bag go unmatched 2 years in a row, he says he feels so destroyed and don't know why lolz.

[shikimate]

So if u wanna match to most specialties, mostly it's personal interactions and LOR. This excludes ultra-competitive ones where yeah you gotta know stuff inside out just to get an attending to smile at you. So if you are like bottom quartile in your med class, no worries, not end of world at all. On your elective, do some reading, know the basics and some advanced stuff, but more importantly, earn some "street cred" in that program and specialty.

There goes a joke about med school class:

- the top 1/3 of class become academians with titles and salutations longer than their actual name.

- the middle 1/3 of class become well respected community practitioners that everyone waves at supermarkets.

- the bottom 1/3 of class become filthy rich capitalists who collet medical office rent from the middle 1/3, and then "donate" it to the top 1/3 for research fund, and then cashes out $$$ when their discovery goes IPO. That's how you score a 5 bagger, 10 bagger, not seeing 5x more patients per hour lol.

[jb24]

I think what you are feeling is entirely normal OP. I feel inadequate constantly as well, but I think we are our own worst critics. It takes time and repetition to get good at medicine.  

[medhopefull1984]

Thanks all for your perspectives and feedback. 

I have come to the realisation that I am not cut out for this profession and have decided to drop out. Cannot help but feel a little guilty that I took up a seat which could have been occupied by a more suitable applicant. But, as alluded to in a post above, this is the price we pay in figuring out what suitability for and success in medicine actually entails.

I sincerely hope the system can work towards selecting applicants from a culture which allows them to be accepted into the medical community for the benefit of not just applicants but the population they want to serve. 

[ihsh]

Similarly to you, I had a high GPA and MCAT heading into medical school, but I didn't get good grades in med school even though I studied pretty hard. For me, what I found helpful was realizing that the vast knowledge in medical school is challenging for almost everyone, and instead of focusing on the grades, I tried to just learn from the tests to fill my gaps of knowledge. In clerkship, I still had to look up things all the time, and residents and even staff have to do that as well. 

If I were you, I would perhaps talk to more classmates/career counsellers before making the decision to drop out. I can only imagine that many of your classmates have a feeling of inadequacy as well. 

In terms of your concerns of not matching, your grades don't mean anything unless you fail a course and have to repeat a year.  CaRMS is super stressful and it's easy feel that you won't measure up to your peers (as a current applicant I have self-doubts all the time). But the reality is that most people do well (assuming that they're not gunning for ultra-competitive specialties), even people who have failed courses in pre-clerkship. 

[MasterDoc]

On 2/19/2021 at 11:40 AM, shikimate said:

the bottom 1/3 of class become filthy rich capitalists who collet medical office rent from the middle 1/3, and then "donate" it to the top 1/3 for research fund, and then cashes out $$$ when their discovery goes IPO. That's how you score a 5 bagger, 10 bagger, not seeing 5x more patients per hour lol.

Why go to med school, if you are planning on going into real estate?

[MarsRover]

On 2/26/2021 at 1:34 PM, medhopefull1984 said:

Thanks all for your perspectives and feedback. 

I have come to the realisation that I am not cut out for this profession and have decided to drop out. Cannot help but feel a little guilty that I took up a seat which could have been occupied by a more suitable applicant. But, as alluded to in a post above, this is the price we pay in figuring out what suitability for and success in medicine actually entails.

I sincerely hope the system can work towards selecting applicants from a culture which allows them to be accepted into the medical community for the benefit of not just applicants but the population they want to serve. 

I am assuming you have thought about this a lot, but do you care to elaborate? I mean your first post sounded like classic imposter syndrome, and now you are dropping out?? Why not think about repeating the year if you feel inadequately prepared? Are your clinicals giving you bad feedback?