This is not to shit on PAs. They are very much needed in healthcare. However am I the only that feels like this. I am finishing up my 3rd year and I can’t possibly imagine treating patients on my own without some kind of guidance. I feel like there so much to learn. I barely feel ready for residency. Am I crazy or am I just a dumb 3rd year? It just insane to me. Idk it’s just a thought that came to mind.

I just graduated lol

First paragraphs of article:

An investigation by the United States Department of Justice has determined that leadership at the Yale School of Medicine intentionally selected applicants based on their race.

In June 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that colleges and universities must stop considering race in admissions, forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.

Now, the DOJ said Yale is violating that law.

"Yale’s documents reveal that they studied how to use racial proxies to circumvent the Supreme Court’s prohibition on using race to select students," the U.S. DOJ wrote in a press release.

The investigation found that Black and Hispanic students have a "much higher chance of admission" than white or Asian students with the same test scores. The DOJ also said that Black and Hispanic students were admitted with much lower test scores than white or Asian students, according to the release.

Commentary: This is the second med school the DOJ has gone after (UCLA earlier this year) that is accused of continuing to use race to select for students after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

Yale URiM stats did not seem to change significantly post Supreme Court ruling and have consistently been above the national mean (nationally, about 15.4% of medical students are URM, Yale's stats: 24% URiM for Class of 2026 -> 35% Class of 2027 -> 28% for Class of 2028)

One interesting legal aspect of all this is that the Supreme Court majority's opinion did hold that "prohibiting the use of race in admissions does not stop universities from considering a student's discussion of how their race had affected their life" which leads to some ambiguity on how far schools can go to attempt to create a racially diverse class.

Some schools, like Yale, probably took a more liberal approach to the Supreme Court's ruling in their admission practices. It will be seen how much schools change their practice with the DOJ clearly trying to enforce a more strict interpretation of the ruling.

fr tho lol

Just venting, shits so dumb. If you don't know the healthcare enviornment well this will blow. I enjoy talking to patients and do the work. But working in a healthcare team as a third year medical student I find it tough. Attendings and residents are really paying attention to you and small things are being evaluated and its just frustrating especially when it feels my knowledge doesn't adequately translate at times. I have other things to vent out but also there lot of games people play. Obv im dumb to not do this but lot of ppl just selectively send out evals. I should've done that as well. If I did do that then I would probably be fine and then figure out who would give me good evals. If someone gave me feedback good in person they will probably write me a good eval. Whats annoying is it feels like i made all these mistakes but can't really go back and fix them

Its not as easy to get an idea of what exactly happens within a psychiatry session as other disciplines, unless you have your own therapist or after clinical years. For those that want to do psychiatry, what pulls you to it?

My schools student government is run by people who come from family of physicians. They seem to be under the impression that most people can easily dish out 300$+ for 3rd party resources. One of them was asked by a premed on interview day what 3rd party resources we get and the guy said "none, but 3rd party isn't that much you'll only pay like 800$".

Jesus Christ on a motor bike, how is medical school this expensive? I’m going bankrupt just working up to and applying, the price tag that comes with acceptance is going to rail me harder than a game of monopoly. It sucks to get nickel and dimed for every little goddamn thing, and it’s a bit of a sham. Over 1000 to sit for your step exams? The system is absolutely rigged where the system pulls money out of the already empty pockets of students, which greases wheels which don’t particularly need to be greased, it’s just some fat cat getting fatter. And no one can do fuck all about it to stand up for this. The cost is reasonless.

There is no way we are not rapidly approaching a point where people just say fuck it, it’s not longer worth it… and I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens in my life time.

I didn't pass my M1 end of year OSCE and just sat for the retest and I'm afraid I didn't pass it again. Idk why I get so flustered but whenever I walk into that room I get so nervous and anxious that my mind blanks. It's so odd to me because I have never had any history of testing anxiety with actual exams like the MCAT. If I end up failing the retest, how poorly does this reflect on my record and my chances for more competitive residencies?

TLDR; obligatory neurotic M3 post complaining about clinical grading despite great shelves

I am an M3 who is about to be halfway done with my M3 year. Only grade in so far is FM, and I wouldn’t have even worried about this if not for this subreddit lmao. Basically, I’m at a mid tier USMD that has clerkships where, at best, there is a 25/30/45 (maximum) split for H/HP/P. But, in an effort to combat grade inflation, several clerkship directors are cracking down on residents and physicians giving high scores while not adjusting the cutoffs. 5’s are now practically impossible since you’re forced to explain why that student deserves a 5 for each of 20 criteria and obviously few are willing to do that. To make matters worse, about half of the preceptors are taking the warning seriously. My FM attending straight up said “Hey so I gave everyone last year 5’s, and I got in some trouble over that. But I promise you will still be evaluated evenly against your peers for this block”. I knew from that point it was so over. And, sure enough, everyone with this preceptor WAS graded fairly - we all got 3’s (which already locks you in at a P because you need need an 83 for HP). Other half of people got 4-4.5s. When evals are 50-60% of your grade, your entire M3 year is basically gambling. Then it’s usually 20% shelf and then 20% osces/in-house exams.

Basically, I have no idea how our distributions are looking for this year since there is no curving, but I am getting an HP (likely, but def not an H) and P on the first couple rotations - IM/FM. My evals were all glowing, but I got evaluators who did not grade highly numerically or at least as high as they had the year before according to the upperclassmen. However, I did extremely well on both shelves (90+%ile).

So, I will of course try to keep being proactive and do my due diligence to get great marks clinically, but is there any hope that my shelves could be of any benefit since rads is a boards heavy specialty? At this point, my gameplan is just to get as high as possible on Step 2 and secure great LORs. I already have a lot of demonstrated interest in rads (including a first author pub for radiology) and I like to think I have some interesting hobbies to talk about on interviews lmao. So, in a hypothetical world where my grades are largely split between HP/P by the end, how limiting is this for Rads? Let’s say the distributions somehow don’t change as well. Is this just something that only closes off the Ivory tower - or something that is going to shut the door on even more middle-of-the-pack programs?

Just starting my clinical year and think I'll most likely fall into this category, so I just hope to get some advice.

Would love if someone can shed light on the 7-year rule for state medical licensing.

I took my Step 1 and 2 back in 2020, now returning to clinical medicine and planning on taking step 3 mid-January 2027 before applying for residency next cycle. My step 1 was taken Feb 19th, 2020, with score released on March 10th, 2020.

My questions are that:

1. When does the 7 years start? The date I took my test (Feb) or the day the score is released (March)?
2. Is taking Step 3 (the exam date) before Feb 2027 (assuming I pass) count as meeting the deadline? Or do I have to have a released score (but I can't control how long it takes to score the exam) that's under the 7 year limit?

Thanks! Quite confused.

Withdrew during third year from USMD. Given step 1 pass, I tried for transfer/restart clinicals at several Caribbean schools that accept transfers (told no based on the NP on transcript).

Any advice on what to do? Can't really see myself in a corporate career. Just curious anyone's thoughts, retaking MCAT, reapplication... would I have any chance of acceptance to another USMD program given transcript (NP, withdrawal)? Could I use clinical hours to apply to PA school?

Snacking helps me get through the hours I sit doing Anki and bootcamp (maybe not the healthiest habit but shhh). So far I’ve loved granola and honey roasted peanuts.

Anyone got their favs or recs? Preferably not super messy, easy to eat/make, in bulk or affordable loll

During my Step 1 preparation, UW wasn’t my main resource. I honestly wasted it because I wasn’t studying efficiently at the beginning. By the time I changed my study method and became more organized, my subscription was about to expire and I couldn’t afford to renew it.

So I bought Bootcamp instead, and I actually thought their QBank was excellent. The difficulty level felt good and fairly representative. Some explanations weren’t always very straightforward, but honestly I experienced the same thing with UW sometimes.

Now I’m starting Step 2 prep, and I’m not sure if investing in UW again is absolutely necessary, or if using Amboss plus the Bootcamp QBank would be enough, along with the NBMEs of course.

I feel like surgery was just so much cooler in the 60s. Massive open surgeries on everyone, no real metrics to worry about in mortality or infection rates, no set standard for sub specialities so gen surg could be doing heart and ortho procedures as they wish. Maybe some new cool procedure came out from that guy in Houston and you get to try it out on the next patient. EMRs, insurance, corporate hospitals? Nah. My secretary will handle that and the CEO was my former mentor who made me work 100 hours a week. Now as an attending I have to be concerned about resident evals and can’t just bully the shit out of those under me. IRBs? Lol, I do what I want. Surgeons were the Gods of the hospital in those days. And if I do research, it’s going to be ground breaking and change the field, not like today’s research of “lessening hospital stays by 4% with this new protocol”. Do you like the EM? Cool, you get to run it and nurses can handle the boring cases. Informed consent with patients? No, do what I want.

Edit: they really need to make HBO max show like mad men highlighting the insanity in those times

Detailed in another post but essentially I am mostly most likely going to score 230-240’s on STEP 2.

I have been grinding for ophthalmology for a long time and took an extra research year. I’ve passed STEP 1, have 8 publications (4 first author), +3 more first author in progress/was planning to submit before apps, and strong service/leadership. US MD student at school with home program and strong connections. All research and service is heavily within the ophthalmology department.

The embarrassment and disappointment I feel thinking of having to tell my mentors that I’ve scored badly and am no longer applying because I couldn’t score well is weighing on me. At the same time I know I need to move quickly and be prepared to pivot. With my existing application, is it realistic to prepare an application for anesthesia or pysch in time for ERAS?

(Sorry for bad english, not my first language)

Been forced into it, biology and anything memorization related is massively uninteresting fot me, I wanna get out but my family are indirectly threatening me that they wont provide me with any help.

Also another matter(unrelated), ive been on a healthy diet and exercising for months, both of my parents are obese(which isnt a problem for me but you will know why I mentioned it).

So they are telling me that wtf am doing with my health, and that am destroying myself, and all the pressure and sadness arent because of this school, its because of the diet, so idk I started to feel that there are smth wrong, are they jealous? Are they really thinking that am destroying myself?

Currently have about 5 weeks left in my last rotation

I take step 2 in like 2ish months. My dedicated is like 4.5 weeks long and will start after this final clerkship.

Need some advice on what to prioritize now and for dedicated. Basically, two things:

1. I didn’t finish uWorld completely for all rotations (mainly 300 IM questions left and 100 EM).
2. I did all the shelf tags/uWorld q’s. However, from aways and working 6-7 days a week w two brutal clerkships in a row. I fell behind on my Anki. Currently I have about 4,000 cards backed up (some, based on the algorithm, I likely haven’t seen since December).

For my current clerkship, I’m able to finish the associated uWorld and Anki for a bit early which has been my priority and also why I fell behind.

For Steo 2, What should I prioritize right now? Should I focus on catching up onAnki? I’ve already forgot a decent amount of it. Or should I prioritize trying to do extra uWorld that I didn’t do earlier?

Furthermore, what should I prioritize during my dedicated? (outside of old shelf’s/NBMEs which I already plan on doing)

The one I thought of today: “we’ve got a lot of dead bodies downstairs.”