Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

What to do if you failed an exam in medical school

Anonymous #1

I know I failed. Should I start revising for retakes right away..

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1

Anonymous #1

Third year. I messed up on my OSCEs. Getting results next week.

Reply 2

Democracy

Original post by Anonymous

Third year. I messed up on my OSCEs. Getting results next week.

When's the resit? I'd probably just wait and see how you did, pretty much everyone comes out thinking they did badly and most people pass. A week isn't too long.

Reply 3

Anonymous #1

5-6 weeks time.

Original post by Democracy

When's the resit? I'd probably just wait and see how you did, pretty much everyone comes out thinking they did badly and most people pass. A week isn't too long.

everyone found it easy. Everyone I spoke to said that.

Reply 4

junior.doctor

If you’ll have another 5-6 weeks to study for any potential resit, then use this week to have a break and have a rest. You’ll need that if you need to start studying again.

Don’t believe everything other people say. Even if people say they found it easy, they may well not have done - but may be too afraid to say so. And just because you found it hard, doesn’t automatically mean you failed.

Wait and see, don’t write it off until you have the results in your hand, rest well this week, and then study again after your results if you need to. Best of luck.

Reply 5

Anonymous #1

Original post by junior.doctor

do you get any marks for explaining to the examiner rather doing the end parts of an examination if you are running out of time?

Reply 6

Anonymous #2

Original post by Anonymous

do you get any marks for explaining to the examiner rather doing the end parts of an examination if you are running out of time?

Might depend on the medical school/examiner.

I've been an examiner for medical school OSCEs, and I would try to give some credit for that if someone was running out of time.

Reply 7

Anonymous #1

Original post by Anonymous

Might depend on the medical school/examiner.

I've been an examiner for medical school OSCEs, and I would try to give some credit for that if someone was running out of time.

How hard is to fail an OSCE station?

Reply 8

junior.doctor

Original post by Anonymous

do you get any marks for explaining to the examiner rather doing the end parts of an examination if you are running out of time?

This will depend entirely on your individual medical school.
If there's a clear reason why it's taken you some extra time (this often happens in my specialty, paeds, if the child doesn't want to engage initially, or you've had to spend time calming them down) then it is sometimes appropriate. Maybe this might also include a person with reduced mobility / ability to adjust clothing, that has eaten into your time - but in my experience, in general they try to preempt things like this so that the patient is already prepared.
It takes practice to get slick at examination technique in the required time. Keep on practising practising practising. You'll find it will slowly start to become more automatic, which means it will take less time.
Make sure that you do the general inspection / hands etc, but don't take SO long doing those sorts of things that you then don't have time to do a significant part of the examination. Again, this takes practice.
If you're getting really stuck, and you get a warning before the end of your station, then you won't lose anything by explaining what else you'd do. For paeds membership (so a postgrad exam, but still an OSCE) we practice "to complete my examination, I'd also like to... examine external genitalia / review a full set of obs / plot height and weight on a growth chart..." and sometimes if I'd run out of time with an unsettled child, I'd add the remaining aspects of the exam to my spiel as well.
You need to know what your exam format is, and how they mark you / what they mark you for. Do you get marks for summarising /presenting back your findings slickly? Do you get any questions from the examiner at the end? If so, make sure that you finish in time to address those, otherwise you can't get those marks.
Go round the wards and practice examining with a stopwatch!

Reply 9

asif007

Premature delusions of failure, typically seen in overanxious medical students who actually have nothing to worry about.

You don’t know you’ve failed until you get the news in hand. Don’t assume the worst, I’m sure you have done a lot better than you think you have. It’s easy to overanalyse all the stations that went badly but forget about the ones that went well. Enjoy your time off before the results come, do things to take your mind off it and be confident that you did the exam to the best of your ability. If you pass, it’s all good and just unnecessary worry. If it turns out you have to do the exam again, take it all in your stride and give it everything. When you’re busy revising and working towards that huge goal of becoming a doctor, you won’t have time to worry. I wish you good luck!

Reply 10

singzeon

At this point I think there really is no point asking hypothetical questions; these do not change the outcome either way. And people's answers here, while they may be with good intentions, you can never be sure that they apply in your school / scenario.

Since results are in a week's time, and resits are another 5-6 weeks, just take the week to not think about it. If you so sure you failed, and you're gonna spend the 5-6 weeks studying for resits, use this one week to take a break, because after that you wouldn't be able to. And don't feel guilty for taking the week off; fact is, you have completed the exams, your results aren't a certainty, no matter how strongly you think you have failed.

Reply 11

Anonymous #3

Original post by Anonymous

Third year. I messed up on my OSCEs. Getting results next week.

Try to as much as possible use the time to relax, unwind and recharge, whatever happens. You get the results soon, so maybe just try to plan how you would do the resit, and mentally try to prepare yourself in the event the results may not be what you hoped. Read stories of many who had to do a resit and managed to get through, and it is not uncommon. Try to reach out to any student support offered for this, to help you get through , even if it is someone to talk to about disappointment.

You'll get there in the end, just take it a day at a time. Focus on the process, on what you need to be doing, rather than worrying about failing etc.