My first rotation of clerkship was pediatrics wards and the staff, whom I knew to be quite harsh from a series of mandatory workshops in my preclinical years, had really high expectations for first-time clerks. My second day on the wards, he asked me to write an admission note for a PICU transfer in under an hour—it took me 3 and he was really unimpressed. Nevertheless, I tried my best to keep up with the pace and manage multiple patients at once. After the first week, he gave me feedback saying I was doing “just fine” and just needed to be more confident and less nervous.

Then I worked all weekend. We were understaffed so I had to manage five patients at once. I’ll admit I’m not the most organized person and struggled to keep up with my tasks and finish my to-do list by the end of each day. Like my other classmates on the floor, I let a few things slip through the cracks in the middle of all the chaos.

On Monday, my staff and senior resident took me aside to tell me I was failing my rotation with 4 days to go. They said I was clearly overwhelmed and couldn’t even manage two patients at once and was too slow and didn’t understand what was going on with my patients. I basically needed to make drastic changes and speak with my site director to pass. I was not given any concrete suggestions to improve.

I was floored. I had truly been doing my best and did not see this coming at all. I burst into tears right then and there. But with the help of my site director, I eventually came up with different strategies to be more efficient, like keeping lists with colored pens and carrying a notebook and minimizing distractions during the day.

On the last day of my rotation, I was told I was still completely inadequate and would struggle through the rest of clerkship and that other attendings would be even more harsh in the future. Again, I sobbed throughout the whole session. I was so proud of the changes I’d made! This was basically my worst nightmare happening—would I even make it to graduation without failing clerkship?

Well, the next rotation was obstetrics and I fell in love with the field. I was told I was sharper and faster and more confident than the average medical student—basically the complete opposite of the feedback I’d gotten during peds wards!

This goes to show feedback really depends on the observer and the context—don’t let a few bad weeks during your training get to you and discourage you from pursuing medicine.

You got this!

– CC4