Getting kicked out of medical school

Hey guys, so I am in a little bit of a predicament. By 'little bit' I mean a ginormous bit because right now I may be getting kicked out of medical school. So a little context to my situation. I am currently a 3rd-year medical student (I won't disclose the uni as of yet) and had relatively no bumps in my journey UNTIL I came to 3rd year.
In the summer holidays I had broken up with my girlfriend of 5 years, it was an extremely messy break-up and honestly changed my worldview. At this point in time, I wouldn't say I was depressed but I was definitely nearing it.
During the summer post-breakup, I had a lot of negative revelations about myself and this is where my downward spiral began. I came back to 3rd year with high hopes of a new year new me kind of ordeal, however, bad habits from the past crept up... These bad habits alongside the depression kicked in super drive and I started to procrastinate HARD, I stopped communicating with many of my friends and lost many friends because of it. I became a social recluse lost 10kg in weight and basically had (and still do) little to no self-esteem. In my particular medical school, we have to do an examination every year called the 'progress test' where we would do it every semester every year until we graduated to measure our progression as future doctors (hence the name). Anyways I failed both the examinations this year (one in January and another in May) by 1%. The second examination I had actually passed until they took out a question from the examination leading to changing the grade boundaries by 1% leading to my subsequent fail. Now I am not excusing myself for failing these examinations as I had no right to pass them in the first place. But just before my second examination I had a cancer scare in the family. In fact, I was told that my mother might have cancer on my birthday. So at that point of life, I was in a cocktail of depression where university not only was not my first priority but wasn't even on my priority list. I had an examination in the summer (OSCE) which I didn't even end up attending, and at this point, I really just wanted to drop out. I had mentioned to the UNI early on I had suicidal thoughts and been diagnosed with depression and was currently taking anti-depressants. I put this on my mitigation form for the OSCE and 2nd progress test. Now here comes the weird part. They accepted my mitigation for my OSCE however, when they found out I had failed my 2nd progress test they did not accept the mitigation I had put through. The university has just sent me an email regarding the termination of my future studies and I am absolutely distraught. Is there anyone that has any clue what I can do in this situation. I have 20 days to draft an appeal and honestly losing my head a bit.

Reply 1

username3832246

I dont get why they accepted mitigation for one exam and not the other - speak to your tutor?

Reply 2

Rishy

Original post by johnny.snow

I dont get why they accepted mitigation for one exam and not the other - speak to your tutor?

Yes it's all very strange. Seems like a crap excuse to throw me off the course.

Reply 3

Cheesychips1

Hey - I'm so sorry to hear about your situation, it sounds incredibly difficult

You might get some good info if a kind admin could move this to the current medical students forum?

Here's a link to a good thread about appeals in med school - https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1768781

Reply 4

Cheesychips1

Oops sorry I sent that too early!

I was going to say often the students union will have an advice service (or similar), with independent people who can support you with your appeal, and attend meetings with you as an independent 3rd party. This could be really helpful in getting the ball rolling, while you are still trying to work everything out.
In terms of the whole situation - you're right it does seem strange to accept mitigation for one exam and not the other, was the mitigation submitted after your 2nd progression test?
I'm very surprised that you haven't been offered (1) a resit of either exam or (2) a chance to repeat the year considering your mitigating circumstances. Does your Uni not have resits? (unless I am misunderstanding your exam process).

Also, this must be such a hard time for you - I hope you have some close friends or a support network you are able to open up to, and access your personal tutor if you feel able to trust them.

Reply 5

Rishy

Original post by Cheesychips1

Hey thank you for the link, it is much appreciated! To be honest with you I haven't used TSR in a while and not familiar with the layout so I'm not surprised I mucked this up :P

Reply 6

Rishy

Original post by Cheesychips1

Yes, you are correct about the student union offering a chaperone of sorts. I will be ringing them tomorrow morning about organising one.
No, the mitigating was submitted long before the progress examination (maybe 1-2 months) however, I did not add the mitigation of my mum's cancer scare.
Yes I am very surprised too, people on the course have been allowed to resit the year even after failing the main exams twice (OSCE's and end of year exams). The progress examination is only important in 4th and 5th year, so it seems like a complete blunder to kick me off the course for an exam that is not even important in that particular year.

Getting kicked out of medical school

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