Failed my first year med exams

So I failed my first year med school exams by 1% (they already rounded up so I failed by 2%) — a very small margin. I am ultimately crushed, and nervous for my resits in about 20 days time. I don’t really know what to do — I’ve reached out to two people who have given me words of encouragement but not what exactly what to change. My personal tutor has yet to respond but hopefully that’ll help.

I have been very demoralised and feel like rubbish, it hasn’t stopped me from revising but I know I’ll feel like this until I get grades back for these resits (which determine if i have to resit the year or not), so you could say im scared and anxious.

I’ve been doing my ANKI’s, I just started using osmosis flashcards/questions to test my knowledge. I’m going to continue with passmed, finishing the questions but I’ll do that after i’m more confident on content since otherwise id just be getting questions wrong because i dont know anything rather than using critical thinking. I’ve even been using geeky medic questions and ninja nerd videos which have been super useful yet long to commit to. Yet I feel stuck. I guess because I feel like I’m just gonna fail again.

What were your exams (multiple choice/single best answer/OSCE/etc.)? Are you required to resit all your exams or just certain ones?
Please don't give up, you can definitely do this! Believe in yourself. Remember that you're not alone and you're going to give this your absolute best shot. Don't put yourself down (you were so close!), you have 20 days in front of you. A lot can happen in that time.
Get in touch with your medical school to see if they can offer support sessions. If you share what exams in particular, we can advise you from there and provide tips where possible

What feedback did you get? Does it tell you the areas you are weaker on?
You can do this, 20 days is 3 weeks! That's more time than a lot of people I know actually spent revising in the first place.

They were two single best answer exams and one anatomy spot exam, all combined together for 254 marks. So i have to resit all three. I haven't given up luckily, just dont think ill feel very happy until i find out if i pass these resits or not lol.

They showed that I did weak in my cardio + gastrointestinal related questions, and on paper 1 i was weak on respiratory on top of those two. I should have a meeting with my tutor some time next week to go through it but yeah just been revising, ive tweaked it a little bit.. i used anki quite a bit before which definetly helped but hopefully gonna complete all the passmed questions etc

For SBAs, make sure you're okay for time. Is this something you struggle with?
If you have it available to you, make sure you're using the flagging options, highlighting and strikethrough. Doing this saves time and allows you to make an educated guess on questions that take longer and you're unsure about. Flag questions you think will take you longer or you have no idea at all, highlight the key info, strikethorugh answer options that are clearly wrong if possible then move onto the next question. At the end, if you have time you can review the flagged questions as well.
For highlighting specifically, I like to highlight age, gender (as some conditions like PBC is more common in females and PSC in males), the main symptoms (each of them, as one of them may help you differentiate between two possible answers) and any allergies (make sure you avoid -cillin drugs in a penicillin allergy). There will be others as well, but get into the habit of doing this.
For revision specifically, I personally would be doing questions now and move away from anki as you want to simulate the exam environment as closely as possible in the lead up to the exams (it's totally up to you and this is my perspective only). I use quesmed or passmedicine (stick with one). For passmedicine, do questions and read the full answers explanations and note down conditions you feel weaker on and read through the passmed textbook for that condition. Do knowledge tutor on that condition to hammer in the concepts and then go back to doing questions. Select all of respiratory, cardio and GI so you're covering all bases. Quesmed can be a similar approach to passmed, but they also have mock tests available so give them a go about a week before.
For anatomy spot, try and see if the medical school will be holding any sessions or if you can borrow some models. Do you get assessed on osteology as well? Do they give you a checklist at all, if so use it and do a traffic light system of ones you're confident in (green), ones you're okay on but get wrong here and there (amber), ones you get wrong more often than not or never heard of (red). teachmeanatomy is good for diagrams and medicosis perfectionalis is good for anatomy videos to help you visualise.
If you're stuck on anything in particular or struggling to get your head around something, I'm happy to help. Mnemonics will really help you, so when you come across something you struggle to understand, make a quick mnemonic and jot it down.

Which year of study are you in? Does it include pathologies yet or what?

Hello! Shockingly, time has never been an issue for me but I am entitled to rest breaks and extra time so I do have it in my pockets just for safety measures. I think the reason i'm a bit focused on ANKI right now is simply because over the last month I stopped revising as I didn't think I'd be resitting, so I'm just trying to refresh my knowledge on the content before I completely bang out questions (otherwise I'd just be answering questions by guessing instead of using critical thinking). But i completely agree, I want to move onto questions fast, and I have been using passmed and doing exactly that. My anatomy was actually fine, it just wasn't enough to move me from a fail to a pass. Unfortunately I can't go to the medical school to get resources however I have been dedicating time everyday to anatomy (ive never heard or medicosis perfectionalis though so thank you for that!). To answer your other response, I found that for cardiology my physiology was weak but also just knowing first line treatments/investigations for conditions so I'm dedicating a lot of time drilling that in. Similar to gastro, I found that the conditions had me muddled up a lot so I'll use the knowledge tutor technique.

Sounds like you've got a good plan! I'll see if I have anything that can help especially for physiology
If you have institutional access to Osmosis, look on their video playlists, go onto the specific block, then click on pathology review. They go through high-yield conditions and they put it into the context of patient scenarios as well.
BMJ Best Practice (institutional access or BMA login required) is also good as another resource for conditions and treatment algorithms in addition to passmed/quesmed
https://bestpractice.bmj.com/info/app/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=sales&utm_content=bau&utm_term=bmj%20best%20practice%20app&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=7384716853&gclid=CjwKCAjw1dLDBhBoEiwAQNRiQa1mMEvMwQhQNciRy_DY-WaH28oa_dty_Oofc6TYPhDvG7V7w7Kx6RoCQXsQAvD_BwE

Wait a minute. Let me understand this correctly. All in your first year, you're expected to learn anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology AND the usual investigations and management of these conditions?
I'm glad I'm not doing this course, I know that much.
I would strongly recommend you do about 50 passmed questions per day. And use the knowledge builder to fill in any gaps you can identify.

Wait a minute. Let me understand this correctly. All in your first year, you're expected to learn anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology AND the usual investigations and management of these conditions?

I'm glad I'm not doing this course, I know that much.

I would strongly recommend you do about 50 passmed questions per day. And use the knowledge builder to fill in any gaps you can identify.

Yeah it was like this for me too, it's part of the phased/spiral curriculum approach as far as I'm aware

Cripes. Is this a common course layout then? My first year anatomy alone would take a sizeable chunk of your time.

any medical students here for a chat thanks ??