Getting into medical school doesn’t mean your life will be any easier. In fact, the first two years of medical school are the hardest in your medical school career. You will know of or hear of people failing in medical school. This may be for a variety of reasons but the problem is, what happens if you do fail medical school? Well, it depends on how much you failed.
What Happens If You Fail An Exam?
Typically, many medical students will have at least a couple of exams where they did not perform well. Failing an exam is not uncommon in medical school and usually does not call for any repercussions. You may receive an email from your professor or from the administration just to check-in to see if you are okay or if something happened. Most medical schools try to be understanding and realize that things happen in life that you can’t control, and that may have caused a slip-up. If you did fail an exam, don’t’ worry about it too much. Just realize what went wrong during this exam and try to fix it for next time. What is the lack of studying? Was it a lack of planning? Did you forget to take your medication beforehand? Many people in medical school learn how to study properly during the first and second year and it’s not a big deal if you fail an exam. The school does expect to bounce back from the slip up though.
What Happens If You Fail A Lab?
If you are talking about a mandatory lab such as Gross Anatomy lab or Essential Patient Care lab, then it will be detrimental to your grade unless you have some sort of extreme circumstance that’s approved by the course director. Labs are critical to a medical student’s learning and most students usually consider labs as a grade booster so please do your best on labs. There are often office hours for students for extra practice before practicals so the lab is really a great time for lots of learning and most students do not fail labs.
What Happens If You Fail A Course?
Failing a course means that you have a written exam average of lower than 70%. Different courses have different numbers of exams so each exam is weighed differently compared to others. So technically, you could fail one exam but still pass the course if the cumulative average written exam score is greater than 70%. Usually, when it is confirmed that you failed a course, the school will contact you to notify you of the failure. If you failed one course, most likely you will need to remediate the same cause over the summer. You will have a shorter amount of time preparing for the exams during the summer so try to study your hardest. It’s not uncommon for medical students to remediate classes during medical school, as people have different circumstances such as having families or medical issues. If you did fail a course, bit the bullet and just remediate. Think about what you can do to improve your studying and move on. It’s no big deal.
What Happens If You Fail Multiple Courses?
This is when it gets a bit scary. For most schools, if you fail more than two courses in medical school, you will be expelled. The school will most likely deem that you are unable to handle the rigorous course load and will prevent you from continuing on your medical school career. This is very unfortunate but it does happen every year. However, if you have failed only two courses, you will have to repeat the entire year again. Some schools allow you to remediate both courses over the summer but I don’t believe those are too common.
Remediating In Medical School
Typically, remediation in medical school is done during the summer. You are allowed to retake the class that you failed during the summer. Depending on the school, you may remediate either one or two courses over the summer. Any more than failures in two courses will result in a possible chance of repeating the entire year. There are stricter guidelines regarding remediation, however. Most students who remediate must only get 90% or better on all exams during the summer, and any score less than that will result in another failure and will be expelled from the school. And students who are able to meet this requirement successfully will obtain a C letter grade regardless of how well you did in the summer class, as well as the fact that the course has been repeated on their transcript. Being able to remediate the course during the summer is way better than repeating an entire year of medical school because you can become a doctor sooner. But most people, including faculty and the school, would disagree. Here’s why.
Repeating A Year In Medical School
Every medical student would hate to repeat a year in medical school. The reason is because it’s another year they would have to grind through before they can make it as a doctor. I have talked to several professors and medical school faculty and the consensus was that they like having students repeat the year if they can, especially if the student was shown to struggle in classes. This is not because the school can take another year’s worth of tuition from the student, but because its more time the student can absorb and learn the massive amount of information and do spectacular on board exams, which is what matters the most. And for most medical students, time is what most of us needs. Statistically, the medical students who repeat or take off a year, tend to do splendidly on courses and their board exam score. And more often, end up in a better position than most of their cohort in terms of foundational knowledge.
So, even if you land yourself in this position of repeating the year. Don’t fret or be too upset because there is a very high chance that it is a blessing in disguise for you.
What Happens To Your Transcript If You Fail In Medical School
So, you have accepted the remediation or repeating the year. What happens to your transcript if you fail during medical school? This is the part where most students fear the most. You don’t actually get an F letter grade on your transcript. This is because that is what remediation is for, a chance for you to avoid that F and get a nice C instead. The downside is, your transcript will show that the class was remediated or repeated. But in my opinion, this is way better than getting expelled from school, right?
What Can You Do When You Fail?
If you are still concerned about the indication of failure on your transcript, then think of it this way. Who is going to see it? Residency programs, right? And what will they think if they saw it during interviews? Ask you about it, correct? Then at that point, your best bet is, to be honest, and tell them that it was due to your inability to study properly, but you have learned how to study since then and have grown as a student. They understand that things happen and it happens to everyone. As long as you are mature about it and can face your failures, something like that wouldn’t even phase most programs as long as you have all the other desirable aspects in your profile.