3rd year grades fell
By Guest on Saturday, 13 March 2004
Posted in Match Center
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need some advice here,

what would you do in this situation my clerkship grades are not as good as my first couple years. i had to take a 2 month leave of absence in the 3rd yr and when i came back, my grades dropped from honors and now are high pass and pass - i thought these are still a good grades but apparently in my school this is considered a big drop

you see, my grades fell while i was doing everything i could to try and save a marriage thats now ending in divorce. i was doing pretty rock solid before this. but this relationship has turned me into a bumbed out person. it's not like this is so bad that i need to take a year off, but it be might bad enough to affect my chances in residency...

is there any advice on how to do well during the rotations while major personal life issues are going on is this something you would mention in your ortho application if it were happening to you:?:

thankyou for your responses.
as i am new here, i just read many of the other forums and realize these clinical grades are probably not the biggest deal in the world. seems like sometimes sh-t happens but the show can still go on.
Guest
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22 years ago
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You are correct, poo poo occurs.

I struggled with third year, did not get the hang of kissing the correct butt until the end of third year. On my rotations and interviews I have learned that there is a wide variation of what it takes to get honors at different med schools. My school requires impressing the correct person as well as doing very well on the shelf. Some students on the west coast just don't show up for the last three days of a clerkship to study for the shelf. I sometimes was on call before the shelf exams. I don't know how these random factors are accounted for but on the interview trail, 'honors' is something that is desirable.

If you are in third year now, I hope you can pick yourself up and charge ahead. Try to demonstrate that the grades correlate with extreme emotional state and rally now.

I know of one ortho resident with zero honors in third year. Try to round out your 'package' -- kick a$$ on rotations.
Guest
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22 years ago
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There are many people in Ortho that weren't superstars in med school. Although it's hard to believe, not everyone who is AOA goes into Ortho. I also know a resident who had no honors during third year, and my med school doesn't have honors during the first two years. I only had one honor during third year, in OB/GYN, and I'm applying for Ortho (and hopefully will match...i'll find out in 24hrs).
So keep your head up, work your ass off, and go all out for it if Ortho is really what you want to do.
Guest
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22 years ago
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Arthropathy,

Sorry about your marriage. You didn't really comment on how much you were settled on ortho, but I'm assuming that you're like most of us and wouldn't be happy doing anything but. Your case generically falls into the category of the girl whose mom had cancer, etc (check out recent post 'personal statement advice...' The good news for you is that while she had to repeat a year, you just have a few passes and highpasses to show for the wear it sounds like. If that's the worst you did while going through something as colossal as a marriage meltdown, then you did quite well. Just really do your best to show that your loss of academic prowess was only circumstantial and kick a#$ from here on out. As you'll likely see on Thursday when we all start posting our credentials, where we matched, etc, you're not in any serious trouble over this. Best of luck/

OF
Guest
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22 years ago
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