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.

As long as he doesn't fixate for too long on "failing" anyone who does well enough on all the selection criteria to take up at place at a UK medical school probably has the ability & the determination to succeed at whatever he sets his mind to.

The sense of failure must be strong at the moment. Let's hope he gets through it. But his mother needs to stop fixating on the pesky foreign students: they have nothing to do with her son's failure.

purple I am suggesting that if you have a business appealing uni decisions you may tend to exaggerate the need for such a service. Why is knowing how much he failed by significant? If the uni confirms there was no mistake in the marking what exactly is your complaint? If there are exams with pass and fail marks some people will pass and some people will fail. I am sorry your son is disappointed but maybe he should see this as an opportunity to find another subject he is more suited to. What motivation would Unis have to cover up mistakes that lead to students failing? Failing students are a disaster for the uni, bad for the individuals involved, bad for statistics, bad for reputation, bad for grant money!

Outcome of the Royal College of GP's case was that they have been given a year to implement changes in oral/practical examination practices which at present appear to be biased against those who appear to be of foreign origin (even if UK qualified)

The financial drain of, and debt taken on by 'middle class' parents of foreign origin sending their offspring abroad eg to the UK to be educated is a huge worry and a national issue in India at present: it came up at an Indian national conference earlier this month. A good friend spoke about it.

Most medical students would be surprised to know that in fact most of what they learn at a UK medical school is actually useful in clinical practice. Not only is it useful, but it is important to know it accurately ie without error and under stress and quickly recall it, for example within a 6 minute consultation or during a cardiac arrest.

That said, not all those who qualify may go on to practice. They may go on to academia. But not if they fail their exams repeatedly without good cause.

It is a problem: not only does one have to be able to remember a lot of dry and apparently irrelevant facts accurately, one has to be an empathetic compassionate human being, capable of excellent communication and sociable and friendly to boot with an exemplary social and home life and networks.

That such people exist at all is astonishing. Yet I can assure you that some of my colleagues: in fact most of my colleagues: are truly amazing people. dedicated and committed and very hardworking all their lives. It is a privilege to know them. I myself have never been ideal, though luckily blessed with brains and a conscience I have been able to learn and be trained to be a reasonable doctor. I don't say this to boast but to give heart to those at the beginning who think they may never get there, and to those who fail to say it is no shame to fail at this particular task which is difficult to succeed at. It is good to have tried.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/racial-discrimination-against-black-and-ethnic-minority-trainee-doctors-cant-be-ruled-out-warns-expert-8876498.html

Alinbalibumblebee this matter is only regarding 2nd year my son's first attempt at the paper and his second attempt ie resit. If he had been given his pass mark and fail Mark he may have known how much more he needed to do for his resits which made him concentrate more on the paper which he failed rather than the one he passed some 4 months earlier.

Upthechimney the pass mark was 50% and my son got 46%. But he passd this exam on his first attempt and Bly had to resit as he failed another but was never given a margin as to how much he passed / failed by so he was going into his resits without having this information.

Goodness purple everyone is partial to their DCs but you are not doing him any favours with this attitude. This medicine, the aim is not to know as little as possible to scrape by at each exam. Upon graduation he will be relying on this knowledge to treat real human beings and I doubt a 50% performance will be good enough. Give him a break, encourage him to move in another direction.

Booboostoo my son has started another course at university he got I straight away through clearing last year but he is not himself he's not as happy as he used to be which is concerning and it is the reason why I'm trying my utmost to ho him get back on the course. I've discussed studying medicine abroad with him but he won't consider it. I just want to see him happy again.

Thank you for that Purplerain, I was confused by mention somewhere of a first year fail and another mention of a second year fail.

But that said, I think if your son had a good grasp of the relevant subject he wouldn't have gone into an exam and failed it after passing it a few months earlier. The knowledge would have been cemented in his brain. I think he was running very hard to keep up and not managing it. Was the one he originally passed a good pass or did he scrape through?

I have a SIL who's a newly qualified Doctor, his first language is Arabic but he did his training in English here at home. If he ever scored less than 80% in an exam he would be happy but at the same time he'd say it should have been better.

And I do understand the upset your family is feeling. I have a boy who's dyslexic and study has always been very hard for him, he would always have resits to do over the school holidays because he couldn't cope with the work load over the entire school year. He's now doing really well as a licensed aircraft engineer on about 3 different aircraft. He did want to be a pilot but that could never be all things considered and we still laugh about how people would have got on a plane with him as the pilot and gone on a magical mystery tour. And even though he loves his job it must be hard for him at times because one of his brothers is a pilot and he very often has to stand in the cockpit with him and clear/not clear his flight for take off after they've discussed mechanical issues. They joke about things Im told the pilot one tells him to clean the windows and the engineer one tells him to get stuffed and put a new one in if you want it cleaner than it is - oh but you can't can you?

I feel for you son and wish good things for him.

I just read your latest posts and I really dont know what to say apart from you are going to have to get him to move on and that is never going to happen if you are still trying to get him back on the course - even after he's started a new one.

Its also time for you to move on, and I'd put money on your son bucking up big time if he sees you are coping with the situation and looking ahead.

Now it could be that your son is depressed and I get him to see a Dr just in case, but once you've done that, and if your son is ok, then it really is time to give him and yourself a bit of a kick up the backside and move on.

Oh and mark my words - the way you are going about this he could easily turn around and say to you one day, 'mum I didn't do so well on my second course/in life because you just kept on making excuses for me, its all your fault'.

You are doing him no favours at all by feeding his upset.

Purple, If your DS just get into another course through clearing. First of all you need to ask him, he did this other course because he is really interested in the subject or just to hold on to something.
If he is staying in the same University and seeing all his other medical friends and doing a course that he is remotely interested in, of course he will feel miserable and seeing himself as a failure. It is not easy for him to regain confident. And just trying to get him back into medicine which he is not really up to it is not going to help either.
I'm sure he had all the grades needed for many other courses. I think you may need to sit down with him and talk about other options and get a fresh start and applying for some proper courses and all the last minutes options through clearing.

I mean not going for the last minutes option through clearing.

Seriously, scrapping by is not the same as passing. The students I've had who get through at the margins (without any extraneous circumstances) tend to end up with a third or a 2:2 at best. Those who've always hit the high 60s and 70s surprise surprise, end up with the distinctions.

You really need to encourage him on his new course, and forget about the whole medicine thing. I'm starting to wonder whether medicine is really his thing, or your thing?

When I taught first years and asked why they were in this programme, there were several who'd say 'because my entire family are lawyers/accountants/engineers...' And frankly, that's not a good enough reason. Or worse, 'because my mum/dad said I should do this...'

As the parent or the more grown up person here, you need to let him make up his own mind. Taking a year out may be the best thing for him. He can go volunteer, or work in a shop, or work as a care home assistant... See what he really wants to do. He has so much more in front of him. It really doesn't matter if he re starts uni at 20/21.

I know of professors who went back to uni at 20something, and got their PhDs at 30something. I know of teachers who took year out, re did a levels and are now v successful teachers. It's not the end of the world that he's not a medic.

Excellent advice NK. I too wondered if this is actually a case of a parent living through a child. If the parent is this engaged & angry (that's what I pick up from purple 's posts, anger) about those horrible pesky foreigners and the cheating university VCs then maybe the son is channelling his mother's feelings?

Unhealthy all round.

I just don't get the sense of injustice from purple. Presumably it's all laid out in the University regs and module/course documentation that both parts of an assessment must be passed, or the who;e thing retaken? That's quite a normal regulation actually (normal, not universal!): that a student must pass all parts of the assessment in a course/module, in order top pass the module as a whole.

And I don't get the "He needed to know how much he failed by so he knew how much to study" this sounds like what we increasingly see as very instrumental attitude towards learning: that it's not actually about learning understanding the material and the concepts -- but about passing by any means.

A really unfortunate attitude I realise how old-fashioned I am. Thinking that an education is about learning stuff, not just getting the bit of paper.

A really unfortunate attitude I realise how old-fashioned I am. Thinking that an education is about learning stuff, not just getting the bit of paper.

No, its not old fashioned.

I may have been being a bit sarcastic.

But seriously, nice to read that I'm not alone! Thank you.

Purplerain, I come from a family of medics but I myself am not a medic. Without exception, all my family members are involved in the medical profession. Hopefully, in a couple of years time or so, my DS would become the 9th medical doctor in the immediate family circle. His younger cousin who started one year later, would hopefully, be the 10th. In addition to the doctors, there are also 5 dentists and I don’t think I’d bother about the Ward Sisters, Staff Nurses, etc. With this particular background, you bet I do know to a certain degree how people in the medical profession live and work.

Not very appealing. Not to me, I might add . . . that’s why I’m not a doctor! No, seriously, I was ridiculously hopeless in science, chemistry in particular, when I was at school. In any case, I never wanted to be a doctor anyway; my interests were towards other things more exciting than dealing with sick people day in and day out.

I am saying all this because I want to tell you that to me, being a doctor is not the be-all and the end-all. Because of my attitude, believe me, there were numerous occasions when what started as a warm family discussion, turned out to be very heated and emotional arguments with many of my said relatives mentioned above about the life of a doctor in particular and the medical profession in general. It’s not that I don’t respect doctors or their profession, on the contrary, I honestly think it must feel very nice to be called, ‘Doctor’ anywhere you go and be addressed as one. It’s just that the huge amount of learning, time, stress, heartaches and whatever else that’s thrown at you on the way to qualifying as a doctor and the stressful and ridiculous workload after that (not to mention more exams and yet more unending exams) that make me think, surely, there must be a better way to make a living and make more money and enjoy life other than being a doctor?

And yes there is! Or rather, I should say, there ARE! There are many professions out there for an intelligent and bright young person of whom your son obviously is, that is better than being a doctor. My happiest and richest friends are not doctors.

When my son was doing his A-levels at a certain boarding school, of the dozen or so of his peers living at the same boarding house, half of them have either one or both parents who are doctors, surgeons, specialists of one kind or other - all very high flying, some very famous in their country of origin. And you know what? None of these medics’ sons (my son’s peers) applied to do Medicine. My son was the only one doing Medicine. All of these boys are straight A IGCSE holders of at least a dozen academic subjects and all of them were predicted (and achieved) at least 4 A at A-level. In other words, all of them are more than qualified in terms of applying for Medicine but none did except my son. So these boys do know something about ‘doing Medicine’ but all bar one, refused to touch it! Is there a message there somewhere?

I would like to conclude by saying your son is not a failure. Failing one exam paper by a few marks does not make anybody a failure. There could be any number of reason(s) that your son did not pass one particular paper on one particular day. By the mere fact that he was accepted into a British medical school in the first place tells me he is intelligent enough to rule the world (of many other disciplines) if he so wishes. The very best of luck to both of you for the future.

Let us just pause for a minute and take another look at the title of this thread started by chickengoujon. Her DD failed First Year medicine. It was the end of the world for her and her mum then, or so they thought. She picked herself up and looked at another direction. Today she couldn’t be happier with life. Well done chicken and DD! Sorry to have hijacked your thread but I hope your story gives others in a similar position renewed inspiration.

Thanks chimney and fwiw, I agree that degrees these days are seen in a rather instrumental manner. Hence lots of students asking 'will this be tested?' And other comments like 'your slides don't reflect that chapter that you say we need to read...' 'That example isn't the same as what you told us to read'. There doesn't seem to be the mindset to go learn, explore, read and discuss. Doesn't matter if you disagree. That's fine...

Even in the sciences I imagine even though there's less scope to discuss and disagree, it would be great if students could explore say different engines or different molecules within the same family?!

I think if purples son has always been a v good student then failure at this point can be quite a shock. My kids are still young but I can still remember the pressure within my family when it was time for us and all the other cousins to do a levels and get into Uni...

We all did different things and we are all successful in what we did/do but the fear of failure at getting into Uni and then the subsequent fear of failure to graduate/do well was always lingering. I worry that I will pass on that pressure on my kids...! Then again my 6 year old is currently at chess club till 8 tonight. If anything I think his father will be the one exerting these pressures!!

Goodness me - so surprised at the turn this thread has taken. I resurrected it when my DS was put out of med school in Sept '13 and basically I just wanted a bit of a shoulder to cry on.....I wanted to speak to people who had been through the experience of a child being thrown off a course. Neither myself nor DH knew what to do next and DS was in state of shock. I found some lovely, helpful, kind comments.........but am stunned to see the turn the thread has taken; boasting about children with amazing A levels and degrees, smug tales about how much someones DC loves medicine and is doing well, suggestions that parents have pushed children into doing medicine, living through children, etc etc. This is not helpful. DS, should you wonder is still doing very nicely with history and wants to do teaching. Hurray!! (Have changed user name for some unknown reason)

We know absolutely nothing about anybody's real circumstances here and therefore cannot/should not really say that much. Even if you disagree with what somebody is saying or think they are perhaps being a bit irrational, must some of you be so nasty? What does Alibali know about Purple's circumstances that allows her to comment so unhelpfully. Please be nice to distressed mothers!

Couple of final points - just scraping exams is not always bad. Somebody has to come in the middle or last!! I mostly just passed my law exams - however, I was actually a pretty reasonable lawyer (well nobody ever complained about me and I was never sued!!) and got on very well with clients - modest to boot as well....Sure there were better, more academic lawyers than me - DH with a 1st class degree is one for a start, but there is a place in all careers, including medicine, for the slightly less brilliant who are efficient, pleasant and helpful!!

Finally, finally, if we want to talk about discrimination and racism, why not start another thread about the Scottish Government uni fees structure, where English students pay top whack for a four year degree course and other EU students get in for free? Something pretty rank there methinks.....plenty of rude comments we can all freely make about that!

Please be nice to distressed mothers!

No, not when children like my lot as well as their cousins and their friends have worked very hard to get into Western Universities in the first place let alone get a good degree and someone then rubbishes their efforts by suggesting it was bought or made easy for them because they're foreigners.

Just as I would be appalled with any of my lot for saying they failed an exam because they're a foreigner, Im also appalled by someone suggesting their son failed his because he isn't .

And just to add that at school they were educated in Arabic with English as a second language (they are all fluently bi-lingual, its just the way the system worked) apart from the 4th one who was educated with an even split of both languages. So when they and their pals did get to Uni having to study entirely in English was something they'd not had to do before.

Getting their degrees/qualifications because they were foreign fee paying students is something that definitely didn't happen.

bellafraebuchan I'm glad that you found support and reassurance on this thread back in 2013. I would hope we nest of vipers generally are kind to distressed mother's, perhaps with a little dose of honest plain speaking where needed.

Without scrolling back through the pages to find your old posts, I'm reasonably sure your posts would have been about expressing your distress and seeking reassurance and advice though, weren't they? Not bandying about racist conspiracy theories and expecting everyone to join in righteous anger at the evil university being so unreasonable to her golden child. That's why she's getting less support. I'm sure that if the thread is resurrected yet again in 2016 or 2017 by a new distressed mother, she will receive all the support she needs if she doesn't have that attitude.

No the nest of vipers was not kind to a distressed parent, with a bit of plain speaking. It was thoroughly offensive and some of the comments are about boasting and showing off rather than being helpful. I always think people who have to boast about their children so inappropriately must have very unhappy lives themselves.

Racist theories are in the eye of those with a chip on their shoulder about their "golden children".

Remnded me why I rarely visit the site. Any other distressed parent is highly unlikey to want to ask for advice here. bella I'm glad your son is enjoying his degree.

I am sure the children will find their way in life. It is not easy.

However there are lots of careers other than medicine. City lawyers can earn £1m to £2m a year which tends to be more than most doctors (if money matters to people which of course often it does not).

All very philosophical, bella, and you asked, must some of you be so nasty?

Purple, a distressed mother sought understanding and compassion and instead, she disturbed a nest of vipers. You know, the Chinese have a saying (very wise people, the Chinese), ‘Big eyes you have but you can’t see the mountain in front of you’. Put it simply, Purple can’t see the nastiness she meted out to all the foreigners who she believes have stolen her son’s medical degree. So her son failed his medical exam and everybody, especially the foreigners is to be blamed. Everybody that is, including the university itself that needs to be punished and be exposed under the Freedom of Information Act. Yes, Parliament needs to discuss this very urgently too so the local MP has got to be involved!

Did I hear distressed mother seeking understanding and compassion?

Purple’s nastiness (that she couldn't see) is an affront to the honest, hard-working foreign students and their parents who pay top whack so that Purple’s son can have a cheap, subsidised education; or perhaps these foreign parents have no feelings and they don’t need understanding and compassion like Purple does and their foreigner DC do not deserve anything like Purple’s family deserve?

Big eyes that don’t see the mountain indeed!