anxious_med Posted October 28, 2011 Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 Hey fellow future colleagues (that's if I can make it through), I am really anxious now about my uncertain future. Please help me analyze my situation. I am in second year at uoft, despite what people say about no one fails med schools I couldn't help but wondering if that's really true especially true to me. I did pretty bad in first year, a couple of 60s and had to do extra work for all of them and luckily passed them all. Also i got professional lapses in ASCM just because I was under prepared for a few sessions and the tutor documented them against me. I talked to the pre-clerkship direction Martin and he said it's no big deal and nothing will show up on my transcript, also he will look into the events to see if they are even true. It's only used for their internal tracking and trying to help students. But I really don't know how much I can trust his words (I am a little paranoid I gotta admit but after suffering through so much at uoft I think anyone would be like this). The worst part is I have no EC, no research experiences since I got into med. Now I might have failed our last exam again but not sure yet. Does anyone have similar experience like me? I feel like a complete loser and a little sad and anxious every time I think about my uncertain future. I want to do IM and with what I have am I at risk of going unmatched for CARMs? Help please oops should have posted in the med student section and a mod move this please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxious_med Posted October 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 Dude. The only thing you can do at this point is study smarter, not harder. The WORST thing you can do is worry. If you worry too much you lose hope. If you lose hope you lose motivation. If you lose motivation you lose energy. And if you lose energy you miss opportunities. DONT WORRY. So, how does one study smarter? Essentially, what that boils down to is trying to prepare for the USMLE. That's right. Go to SDN and figure out what the big shots are doing, and do that. Get USMLEWORLD for a year(about fivehundred bones) and do all the questions ten times. I'm serious. Ponder the explanations. Make notes for yourself. ANd if you feel up to it by the end of the year, write the real damn thing. But don't worry about this "Failing" crap. Unless you make it a habit, nobody cares. A 60 is still a P at a P/F school. I know people who failed exams and had to retake them who matched to things at UofT. I know others who matched to ROAD despite a failure. Don't get your hair all standing on end. Hey thanks Brooke. So by studying the USMLE it would help me prepare for my clerkship years? Also how do you interpret that stupid professionalism lapse at uoft. My tutor was just being mean. Everyone I know was at least once or twice unprepared for some sessions because of exams/personal reasons etc and she thinks that's a breach of professionalism. Do you think I can trust what the preclerkship director told me? Nothing will show up in my record? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cardiomegaly Posted October 28, 2011 Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 Hey anxious med, Sorry to hear about your predicament. It's gotta be stressful. I'm not sure sure about the usefulness of the USLME for you (from what I've heard from friends who took it after 2nd year, the questions are super focused on biochemistry and pathways and immunology etc) but then again I'm at a western school and U of T may be different. Most of the time lecture notes + supplementary readings should suffice. Pick up Harrison's to help you understand pathophysiology. Do NOT go to anything like TO notes until you understand the disease/clinical signs/investigations/treatment. It's too brief. Here's my advice to you: 1. Don't worry about ECs if your marks are shaky. Future doc preaches it to undergrads, and the same holds true for medicine. Except this time, it's not about getting 90% to get into medical school, it's having sufficient knowledge to A. pass, B. look mildly competent in clerkship and C. don't kill your patients. 2. Faculties look at trends. If you always pass by the bare minimum and then fail a test or have an unprofessional behaviour, they're less likely to let it go easily. I know at a lot of schools you can fail one exam, write a remedial, but the next exam you fail results in you repeating a year. Or going to the academic standings committee, which is never, ever fun. 3. There's still hope. No one will know if you got 60s on everything at and passed, it won't show up on your transcript. What you need to focus on is improving so that you'll be a good clerk. Having a solid knowledge base from preclinical combined with a strong work ethic and nice personality usually leads to being a strong clerkship student. That being said there are exceptions. But if you didn't learn enough in your first two years it will show in clerkship and indirectly end up on your MSPR with weak comments and evaluations. It's those comments and future reference letters that will really affect your CaRMs match. And according to some people, how well you schmooze/get along with important people in residency programs. You have a whole year to make changes. The good thing is you're aware of your situation and motivated to make some changes so that you can match to IM. Try talking to your student affairs office, they often have good resources for tutoring and overall will be able to help you out. Also, most student affair offices cannot tell your UME office anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted October 28, 2011 Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 I think you need to delve into why you are struggling in medical school. I presume you did well academically in order to get in. What has changed? Why were you underprepared for more than one session, if the tutor documented the first (not blaming, but a serious question)? Address the root causes. Be proactive in seeking help. Whether or not you trust the preclerkship director (and I don't see why you shouldn't), it shouldn't affect your determination to improve. Don't worry about ECs and research at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxious_med Posted October 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 Hey anxious med, Sorry to hear about your predicament. It's gotta be stressful. I'm not sure sure about the usefulness of the USLME for you (from what I've heard from friends who took it after 2nd year, the questions are super focused on biochemistry and pathways and immunology etc) but then again I'm at a western school and U of T may be different. Most of the time lecture notes + supplementary readings should suffice. Pick up Harrison's to help you understand pathophysiology. Do NOT go to anything like TO notes until you understand the disease/clinical signs/investigations/treatment. It's too brief. Here's my advice to you: 1. Don't worry about ECs if your marks are shaky. Future doc preaches it to undergrads, and the same holds true for medicine. Except this time, it's not about getting 90% to get into medical school, it's having sufficient knowledge to A. pass, B. look mildly competent in clerkship and C. don't kill your patients. 2. Faculties look at trends. If you always pass by the bare minimum and then fail a test or have an unprofessional behaviour, they're less likely to let it go easily. I know at a lot of schools you can fail one exam, write a remedial, but the next exam you fail results in you repeating a year. Or going to the academic standings committee, which is never, ever fun. 3. There's still hope. No one will know if you got 60s on everything at and passed, it won't show up on your transcript. What you need to focus on is improving so that you'll be a good clerk. Having a solid knowledge base from preclinical combined with a strong work ethic and nice personality usually leads to being a strong clerkship student. That being said there are exceptions. But if you didn't learn enough in your first two years it will show in clerkship and indirectly end up on your MSPR with weak comments and evaluations. It's those comments and future reference letters that will really affect your CaRMs match. And according to some people, how well you schmooze/get along with important people in residency programs. You have a whole year to make changes. The good thing is you're aware of your situation and motivated to make some changes so that you can match to IM. Try talking to your student affairs office, they often have good resources for tutoring and overall will be able to help you out. Also, most student affair offices cannot tell your UME office anything. Hey Thanks for the reply. Now I am scared because my record does not look super great overall. I hope they don't ask me to repeat a year and I do know a dude who literally failed (got like 30s and 40s) a lot of exams last year and remediated over the summer then passed and in second year now. The 70% pass at uoft is making my life miserable. My problem is I don't study enough but I am worried about my weak performance from year 1 and possibly beginning of this year will permanently harm my chance at CARMs. What do you guys think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxious_med Posted October 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 I think you need to delve into why you are struggling in medical school. I presume you did well academically in order to get in. What has changed? Why were you underprepared for more than one session, if the tutor documented the first (not blaming, but a serious question)? Address the root causes. Be proactive in seeking help. Whether or not you trust the preclerkship director (and I don't see why you shouldn't), it shouldn't affect your determination to improve. Don't worry about ECs and research at this point. I had no idea that she documented it and she never mentioned it to me until I read the report at the end of the year. She said nothing for the whole year! Am I at risk of dropping out of med school? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted October 28, 2011 Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 I understand you are scared but what is done is done. You can only change what you do from now on, and as others have said, the beginning of medical school does not count as much for CaRMS. You have the chance to improve if you deal with your troubles, which I still don't fully understand. Why do you not study enough? Presumably you realized the importance of good grades to get into medical school, and were able to balance academics with ECs. Do you have other distracting issues that you need to deal with first before you start worrying about CaRMS? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxious_med Posted October 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 I understand you are scared but what is done is done. You can only change what you do from now on, and as others have said, the beginning of medical school does not count as much for CaRMS. You have the chance to improve if you deal with your troubles, which I still don't fully understand. Why do you not study enough? Presumably you realized the importance of good grades to get into medical school, and were able to balance academics with ECs. Do you have other distracting issues that you need to deal with first before you start worrying about CaRMS? I was told my many meds that no one can fail med school and it's waaaay easier than undergrad (it's a lie damn it), so I slacked quite a bit in first year. This year I studied more but apparently probably still not enough. Also this year I experienced alot of personal stuff in the first 2 months of school so despite me wanting to change I was significantly affected. I just want to make sure I am not going to get kicked out or fail out of med school because of my past. Has anyone had similar experience like me? What are the chances of Canadian medical students not being able to make it through med school due to academic reasons? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted October 28, 2011 Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 I understand you are looking for reassurance, but no matter how many stories we tell you about people we know who made it through with subpar grades at the beginning, we are not your school's preclerkship committee and cannot give any guarantees... just a sounding board, encouragement, and outside perspective. Sorry about the stressful situation you are in, but consider yourself fortunate to have received this wakeup call relatively early on, instead of in clerkship where mediocre performance will definitely affect your competitiveness for residency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cardiomegaly Posted October 28, 2011 Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 Agree with Lactic Folly. It doesn't matter if people say med school is easy and there's no way you can fail out - it's no longer about grades and stupid BS like that - you're training to be a doctor, to take care of real live patients and you need to take responsibility for it. Academic standing committees rarely kick people out but it has happened, whether for professionalism issues or repeat academic offences. This is what I've been told by people who run and attend those meetings: One time exam failures or rotation failures, in the setting of student who has an otherwise clean academic record and an obvious stressor (be it family or personal illness, tragedy) will NOT get you kicked out. They will HELP you get through that. What will hurt you is an obvious poor work ethic, failure to take accountability for your own actions and repeat academic problems. I always tell people this...always assume you are the rule, not the exception. Someone always knows someone else who managed to defy all odds, like match to plastics when they failed a pre clerkship exam. What no one tells you about is all the people who failed to match to their desired competitive specialty because of x y z reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laika Posted October 28, 2011 Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 Do you think I can trust what the preclerkship director told me? Yes, you can absolutely trust whatever MS tells you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxious_med Posted October 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 Hey thanks for all the kind words. Yes I need some reassurance. Sometimes I just start worrying about things and what could possibly happen in the worst case scenario. I will start picking up my good old undergrad work ethics. However I just want to be sure if I do even a little below average I should be able to lets say get a family medicine position right (Although my impression is that IM is not that competitive either but I could be totally wrong)? Ofc I mean I will pass everything but with mediocrity. Sorry I just need to calm my nerves down. It's the time of the year again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted October 28, 2011 Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 By definition, half of every class is below average. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOC_Ma Posted October 28, 2011 Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 From what I heard is that one basically can't fail med school but uoft makes it easier for one to fail that's for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erk Posted October 29, 2011 Report Share Posted October 29, 2011 Man, am I every grateful for pass/fail grading. I can't speak much to CaRMS, being only a first year myself and in a different grading structure, but it sounds to me like you're freaking out about the grade thing and it's only going to hurt you. There is some really good advice in this thread. I'd like to ask: How do you study, and in what ways do you feel you are/were falling behind or failing? Study skill is far more important than study quantity. I study only a short amount every day, but I try to do high-impact study and since the MCAT it has stood me in very good stead (mostly. I am not happy with GI anatomy :/ ) Further, how is your social life? Have you got a good support network of friends? I don't mean people you drink with, I mean people you can say "Man, I really don't feel like I'm on top of school right now" to and get a serious response. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloh Posted October 29, 2011 Report Share Posted October 29, 2011 And when it's P/F, who knows how far from the mean you really are? I can't speak for other schools but UofA shows you the mean and the lowest and highest marks, so you know exactly where you stand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviathan Posted October 29, 2011 Report Share Posted October 29, 2011 However I just want to be sure if I do even a little below average I should be able to lets say get a family medicine position right (Although my impression is that IM is not that competitive either but I could be totally wrong)? There are always enough residency spots for you to match in something, somewhere, even if your grades are awful. Of course as someone else mentioned you should worry less about working hard for the grades and more for being a good doc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattg Posted November 4, 2011 Report Share Posted November 4, 2011 Hey thanks for all the kind words. Yes I need some reassurance. Sometimes I just start worrying about things and what could possibly happen in the worst case scenario. I will start picking up my good old undergrad work ethics. However I just want to be sure if I do even a little below average I should be able to lets say get a family medicine position right (Although my impression is that IM is not that competitive either but I could be totally wrong)? Ofc I mean I will pass everything but with mediocrity. Sorry I just need to calm my nerves down. It's the time of the year again. Getting a residency spot has nothing to do with how you do on exams, provided you don't fail any courses (such that it shows up on your transcript). All they will see if Pass or Fail so there is no way to differentiate students that had average, below average, or above average marks. Getting a residency depends on all of the other variables... btw, when you say a residency is or isn't competitive, that's kind of too vague to say... Pretty much every residency is competitive at UofT, albeit some more than others... and there aren't many residencies that are so competitive that you won't be able to get a spot somewhere in Canada, if you are serious about it (although there are some, to what I understand) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nixon Posted November 4, 2011 Report Share Posted November 4, 2011 medical school only uses pass/fail grades? awesome! Alas, not in Quebec.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Hood Posted November 7, 2011 Report Share Posted November 7, 2011 Alas, not in Quebec.. French schools think they are gods and expect their students to be such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inspiring-curmudgeon Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 I wish med schools would put marks on transcripts, as it allows for easier comparison between candidates for residency programs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiceWine Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 I wish med schools would put marks on transcripts, as it allows for easier comparison between candidates for residency programs. speak to your dean about it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inspiring-curmudgeon Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 speak to your dean about it? I doubt that would make a difference! Almost every school in Ontario is pass/fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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