Failed 1st year medicine

[chickengoujon]

I am so upset and just looking for a bit of support really. My dd worked desperately hard to get into uni to do medicine. She volunteered at a local old people's home, worked at the gps, worked at the hospital, etc. She got fantastic A levels: A*, A, A, B in general studies. She is a lovely girl, really home loving and plesant.

When she went off to uni she was sad and then started to really live it up, not working very hard. She failed an exam after christmas but apparently that 'didn't matter'. She then failed 5 exams in the summer and spent all summer revising for her resits, only to fail again. After the uni asked her to leave last week she told me that she hadn't been eating properly for about 6 months. She is 5ft 8 and 7st 10. She is like a stick insect and I have been very concerned about her extreme thinness, but she reassured me that she was fine. She said how she had difficulty concentrating when revising and couldn't remember things - does anorexia do this? We didn't submit mitigations before her exams because I wasn't aware that she wasn't eating and she thought she was fine. Could we appeal? Is it too late? The uni seem totally disinterested and couldn't care less.

I feel so upset. Getting her in was so difficult and now it seems she has lost everything. She is totally devastated. Thanks for reading.

Yellowtip..which Uni?

I know this thread is old..I posted on it a year ago when my DD1 came home from her 1st year a 6 stone anorexic. A ray of hope maybe for those currently struggling.. she got help, went back, now has great friends, had a great year and is a normal weight again,(tho her relationship with food is still difficult). She is waiting for her results but appears to have done really well this year and will be back in September for the start if her 3rd year..clinical and very exciting.

We enlisted every bit of possible support from Uni, took a while but she got there..

I don't think anyone is made aware how bloody tough medicine is... it's such a stress to get a place but that is just the start :/

medusawithbadhair (love the name) What a great ending. Well done to you and your dd and to those who helped her, for turning her life around.

I would really rather not say which Uni as my daughter will be returning in Sept to do another degree there- she preferred not to go another Uni as she had made good friends in her first year and chose to live with them last year pending the appeal. Her appeal was, as far as we were concerned, a solid one. She had suffered the bereavement of two close friends during her studies- but under great pressure from me and her Dad - took virtually no time off as we were concerned that this would have a detrimental affect on her studies- if only we had known. Her course supervisor was 100% behind her appeal- in fact she was the one that suggested it. However, because we did not submit extenuating circumstances at the time that she sat the exams, all of the documentation from doctors etc regarding her mental state were disregarded. I feel now that she was always one of the bottom5% in her year( as mentioned by another person earlier) and was going to fail whatever. She failed by1.4. % in both the final exam and resit- but passed the massive Anatomy exam and the other 10 units needed to complete the other 2 thirds of the course. It really has destroyed her confidence- all of the hours of study, voluntary work etc to get in to med school counts for nothing. I feel so sorry for her

Please don't despair as there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel. My dd got herself a job at a fantastic company (which you will have heard of) and they are paying for her to do her professional qualifications. I honestly don't know how she has managed to do so well for herself.

Medicine is so stressful. One of dds friends has just failed her 2nd year which is just unbelievable and so stressful for her. I think my dd is glad to be out of it all now, although it was devastating at the time and really knocked her confidence. It's lovely to see how much she has blossomed since she started work. I think when you are in there, doing it, it is difficult to see another path in your life, but there is another way. If you asked my dd, she would say that failing was devastating at the time, but she is glad that it happened now, as she has shoes, handbags and make up galore and no debt.

I know now that the university she was at has a very high failure rate but I don't know if I am willing to put my head above the parapet and name it. I would have to think about that one. Getting into medschool is just the start and the number of failures is incredible - together with those resitting a year or sitting externally. Some people have got back in by lying and cheating, whereas we were just honest and it didn't work. I am just relieved it all worked out well.

And I just wanted to add that she seems to have completely got over her anorexia as she has just stuffed her face with a box of Roses. I think it must have been the stress of it all.

chicken I'm very glad to hear how things have turned out and especially glad that she's well.

I agree with funny that it would be helpful to applicants to know which universities have a high failure rate. My understanding is that Birmingham's is high, but that's based on drawing together anecdotal evidence rather than evidenced by stats.

I'm so pleased chicken that everything has worked out so well for your dd. It has just reaffirmed my belief that although the initial upset was awful for my daughter - there is life away from med school! this is something that she has discovered this year and she seems to be getting over the very distressing time. Hopefully she will do well on her return to Uni ( although she is quite scared of doing exams now, whereas she was never like this before med school) and just enjoy her Uni experience rather than dreading the e mails regarding exams - always on a Monday evening!!!! Guaranteed to put you off your dinner!

Funnyperson I do agree it would be really helpful to have clue about which have high failure rates. Is anyone prepared to give a hint about this?

I just wanted to say that failing her first year will turn out to be a blessing when you look back in the future. She may be suffering a career set back at the moment but not having the pressure of studying will give her the chance to get better and then she will be able to move on. I know that it isn't as simple as just being positive but she is safe with you now. I wish you all the best for the future and it will get better.

Al is not lost. Your dd can take a year or two out and start again. Or do a natural science degree and then apply to do medicine (in 5 years instead of 6, I think) Lots of medics go down this route now.

As far as retention rates for universities go -- I think you can guess from the selectivity of universities and the thoroughness of their admissions process whether students are going to be retained into their second year and beyond. Universities with very mixed intake are more likely to have higher loss rates.

Here are some retention stats but sorry in advance I haven't read them they may or may not be informative. Hefce is the institution that monitors retention and outcomes among other elements of third level ed.

Higher Education Statistics Agency is the provider of stats..

I'm glad I found this page as I am another worried mum. My son has just failed one resit by a very narrow margin yet despite passing everything else he has been thrown out of medical school at the end of year two. There is no option to retake the year. Medicine is the most harsh course with absolutely no support at any stage. As a mum it is very hard being left to pick up the pieces of failed dreams. I think we have a tough time ahead and I have no idea where to begin.
Somehow I suspect other mums are facing the same.

I know of one individual who was ?kicked out? of medical school after having failed the fifth year and therefore, has absolutely nothing to show in spite of having passed the previous four years. It?s as brutal as that. Anyone else wanting to read medicine at university?

Sometime in May of this year, DS panicked in the midst of his revision for first year exams. For the first time ever, he was talking about failure. I?ve never ever known him to be like that throughout his entire school days - taking and passing exams were like a walk in the park to him - but now he was sounding us out in preparation for failure! His complaint was he couldn?t absorb anymore; there?s ?so very much to learn and remember? and God forbids, ?I can?t remember anything that I?ve learnt!?

He sat the exams and immediately disappeared into the other side of the world not wanting to know anymore.

Oh my goodness that is so terrible and I feel very sorry for you and your son. I bet he is devastated. I have thought quite a bit about saying which uni my dd went to and I think people need to know that it's name starts with a B and ends in an m. I really wouldn't recommend it for medicine. She didn't even know that she had a Personal tutor. The support for these young people is abysmal. Big hugs Stressed Mum. I have been there and it does get better xx

I have heard of cases at that Uni chicken. My DS2 went to school with 2 people who went there for Med and didn't get beyond the first yr.

chickengoujon I am so pleased for your DD!!!

Medicine has a large drop out rate in all Unis, it's kind of expected because the assumption is that it is a really tough degree that prepares you for a really tough job so it's best to drop out early than later on. My personal view is that pastoral support is rubbish in the medical schools I have known. Large numbers of students are allocated to doctors (up to 15 students per doctor). The doctors are quite overworked and some resent the teaching duties they see dumped on them - pastoral care is one of the first things out of the window. Of course not everyone is like that, but I think the general attitude is you either sink or swim on your own in medical school.

Life is a struggle.
My son is still struggling with coming to terms of being thrown out due to a single exam failure by just 2%. What was even crueller was that they made him attend a week of year three before telling him. Hence we also have huge financial costs due to accommodation and a new lease etc.
It has all been a nightmare and the uni were especially unkind in the way they acted and were very clear that our son is simply a statistic to them.
I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else. It would be easier to deal with he hadn't had to say bye bye to his friends after he had started the work of year three and he was doing well in everything else.
The medical school begins with 'b'

Thank you for your good wishes chickenguojon - i totally agree about the lack of any support or even basic welfare given to the med students. I don't suppose it will ever change at uni's starting with a 'b' and ending in 'm' or an 's'
I hope your daughter continues to mend and I take hope from all the others posting too.

Another one who has come across this too. It's as well that students know, when making their decisons about applications and acceptances. These students are much more than mere statistics. I'm so sorry for him Smh. If this reputation is ill-deserved then the university in question should do something to counter it. Best of luck to him; it's shoddy beyond belief.

I feel so sorry for your son smh-how harsh was that uni for allowing him to start the 3rd year? As i posted earlier, my dd is returning to uni to do a straight Science degree now. Whilst she is glad to be back in the education system, she is very nervous of doing exams. As a teacher, i have to be very careful of the advice I now give to students about their choice of course/ uni as my opinion of certain unis and definitelymy opinion of med courses has been completely tarnished by her experience. I hope that your son is ok after this really horrid time. Our experience of speaking to numerous members of the undergraduate teaching staff in our dd med school is that they couldnt give two hoots for the welfare of the students- hard to accept at the time but it seems this is the case in many other unis. Good luck to your son for the future

I think a lot of kids feel that if they are able to get really high grades, then medicine is the way to go - know my dd thought this. Having been out in the real world, she can now see that medicine is just one career path and there are others which are much more lucrative, less stressful and have much better working hours and conditions. They also don't seem to have the 'rite of passage' element that medicine has.

I feel it is important for students to realise that getting in is just one hurdle and there were many others who failed their first year, and others that have now failed their second (some of dds friends).

I too hope that your son is getting over his disappointment. It's a big world out there and there are so many opportunities for people with the excellent exam results that your son has. My dd really hasn't looked back - she is loving life with a good salary coming in every month.

Am so grateful for finding this thread - ds has just been "excluded" - the polite euphemism........ from medical school after failing a first year resit. I must be the only stupid mother out there who thought that somehow failing a resit in medicine meant you just had to repeat the year. I knew one of his friends was doing this, but didn't know that the friend had got his appeal in before the resits started!
ds had done very well and was heading for an honours pass, got over confident and didn't work hard enough for the exam or the resit. Both fails were by a very small margin. A first girlfriend behaving badly didn't help either. I was so relieved to read other's experiences and to find I'm not the only one devastated by this news. Uni has so far not been any help whatsoever. Pastoral care is a joke but with something close to 40000 students I guess I shouldn't expect anything more. Medics mostly very hard boiled in my opinion.
However I guess it's different for us as ds doesn't want to go on with any form of science degree. He actually said that all along he wondered if he was good enough to get through the science part of the course. Confidence now at rock bottom and he worries about starting somewhere else - this happening at this late stage is also part of the nightmare. I agree with the comment above that medicine really should be post grad if that were possible.
Can't say too often that this thread has been a life saver for me. Hope all the other young people mentioned are now doing well

Fifty something. Sorry to read your news.
I am shocked to hear how badly medical schools treat their students.

Assuming that the system is similar to the one I am familiar with, when writing your appeal it will be important firstly to establish why the mitigating circumstances were not disclosed at the appropriate time - before the results were known. If you can do this convincingly then they should consider the circumstances and reconsider the outcome. If they don't think there is good reason not to have declared the problem at the appropriate time the actual circumstances will probably not be considered. You need to avoid any implication that your daughter decided not reveal her problems, emphasise that she did not realise she had a medical condition. You will need good third party medical or counselling evidence to back this up. Illness causing a slow decline of capability is a legitimate reason for not declaring in a timely way because it is hard to spot until something dramatic happens. Evidence from parents is not usually considered strong but a clear, unemotional statement of the facts is helpful.