Failed Med School - Options?
Hi I’m in my first year of med school and have struggled with anxiety quite badly throughout. I had been doing fine in exams through the year but failed the end of years, and so was told to resit. The student support that I had been speaking to wrote me a reference for extenuating circumstances and I was told that given my situation I may be allowed to retake the year. However, after applying for the ec I was told that it’s not an option for me. I’m not confident at all about how the resits went (10 days until I find out) and was wondering if anybody had any advice / had been in a similar situation. I appreciate any help as I’m feeling quite lost and disappointed in myself.
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Medicine Interview discussion 2023 Entry
2023 entry A100 / A101 Medicine fastest and slowest offer senders
Index of Individual Medical School Applicants' threads 2023 Entry
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Official Undergraduate Medicine 2024 Entry
Graduate Entry Medicine 2024 Entry
GAMSAT 2024 / 2025 entry discussions megathread
UCAT 2024 Entry Discussions Megathread
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Graduate Entry Medicine 2025 Entry
Official Undergraduate Medicine 2025 Entry
Useful Articles:
GCSE Requirements for Medicine
Everything you need to know about the BMAT
Work Experience as a Graduate or Mature student
Medicine Personal Statement Advice
Medicine Personal Statement Advice (Graduate Entry)
Interview Frequently Asked Questions
MMI Medicine Interview Tips
What to do after an unsuccessful first application
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Original post by abigail.noon
Hi I’m in my first year of med school and have struggled with anxiety quite badly throughout. I had been doing fine in exams through the year but failed the end of years, and so was told to resit. The student support that I had been speaking to wrote me a reference for extenuating circumstances and I was told that given my situation I may be allowed to retake the year. However, after applying for the ec I was told that it’s not an option for me. I’m not confident at all about how the resits went (10 days until I find out) and was wondering if anybody had any advice / had been in a similar situation. I appreciate any help as I’m feeling quite lost and disappointed in myself.
Anxiety is very, very good at borrowing trouble, and correspondingly poor at assessing a situation accurately.
This is going to be an uncomfortable nail-biting ten days for you, but try not to borrow problems for yourself before they've even arrived. You might have done OK. Lots of people need to resit exams at medical school, and most of them will pass. It can be hard to believe this, and even harder not to take failure as some terrible indictment of your intellect and character, because most medical students will have found school pretty easy and are unlikely to have failed anything in their lives. Med school is likely to be different from anything you've ever done before, and you need to learn to treat these situations as bumps in the road rather than as impenetrable fortified roadblocks. There's a reason why questions about perseverance and resilience are interview favourites.I'm in a similar situation to you right now. My exam results were a mixed bag, and I've just put in a request to defer my resit, because I'm not sure I can cram for it successfully in the space of a fortnight. If my request isn't granted I'll just have to hope for the best. It feels frightening because I worked so hard to get here, lots of friends and family were excited for me, and I was so enthusiastic about clinical years after we had our induction week at the hospital - I couldn't wait to get started. The prospect of all that being taken away from me at the eleventh hour isn't fun. Even the thought of delaying my clinical years isn't fun, although this is the best case scenario. But it does help me that I came to medicine in my thirties, having had a previous career, and this means I do know that there is life outside medicine. If you went to med school straight from A-levels it can be very difficult to see that, as you've probably spent years working towards it without giving much thought to other possibilities. You may not have a strong sense of who you are and what you're good at beyond that dream. But there will be other things you're good at and other things you'll really enjoy. It helps to remember this no matter whether you pass or fail; people who live and breathe medicine and make it their sole reason for existence are rarely that happy, at least from what I've seen. No matter what happens, you'll find your way.
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