ER Final

Today I got the highest score on the exam! That is cool. In order to get an A on the final exam you need to score 0.25 standard deviations above the mean. There were 100 questions on the exam and I answered 84 correct. The mean was 75 with a standard deviation of 6. Which means if you scored a 76.5 or higher you would qualify for an A. 

The way these rotations are graded is there are 6 categories that your clinical skills are graded. These include: 1.) knowledge 2.) Patient care 3.) Professionalism 4.) Life long learning 5.) Up to date clinical practice skills 6.) Communication. The physicians you work with basically rate you on these 6 core skills. The ratings are Outstanding, Good, Adequate, Inadequate. The other grade components = assignments and projects and the final exam. In order to get an A in a rotation you have a couple of different ways to do it. Firstly, if you get 0.25 standard deviation above the national mean for the exam (all 3rd year medical students take these exams) and 3 of the 6 core skills are outstanding and only 1 core skill adequate then you get an A for the rotation. The other way to get an A is to score the mean on the national exam and get 4 of the 6 clinical skills marked as outstanding and only 1 core skill can be adequate, then you will also qualify for the A. It is set up this way to help people who are better at exams and help those who are better at clinical skills. 

Why are these grades so important? Well in order to get into competitive residencies and competitive fields of medicine you have to compete against all the US medical students. Residencies look at many aspects of the applicants. The major factors include: 1st and 2nd year grades in the basic science courses, 3rd year clinical grades, the 1st and 2nd USMLE scores (board exams), and your 4th year elective rotation grades, letters of recommendation, research publications, Dean's letter and other letters of recommendation. There are other things as well and there are several theories about which of these things are considered most important for being a competitive applicant. The current thinking by many is that the 1st USMLE board exam score, and your 3rd year clinical rotation grades are the most important but I am sure it varies at each program. 

It seems like since the day you decide you want to go to medical school until the day you get your first job as a doctor you have tests and different requirements looming in the near future. There is an underlying stress throughout the entire process. It all starts with doing well in college and then doing exceptionally well on the MCAT. 

At my medical school there were about 10,000 applicants for roughly 150 spots. They offer about 500 acceptances to fill the 150 spots. This is about the same at all the other US medical schools. I feel lucky to even have the opportunity to study medicine. I got lucky and blessed to even get in. Many who are more qualified do not get accepted and have to do something else, go to a DO school (slightly less competitive than the MD schools) or go to a school in a different country (Caribbean medical schools). 

Then once you are accepted the exams and keep coming and never seem to stop. It is constant and unrelenting. At least I find it fun and exciting which makes it well worth it.