I’ve posted before on how I was let go from IM residency for clinical deficiencies.
My PD has been clear that the chief, if not only, reason for this was clinical competency and he has not indicated that he believes work ethic is an issue. In fact, he has overall spoken positively about it.
Initially, he was refusing an LoR entirely. I’ve since talked with him again and he said that while he still recommends leaving medicine he can give a neutral letter.
One issue with my Step is that I failed 1 and never remediated it. My school allowed me to apply with just COMLEX (with COMLEX 2 being pretty low) on the condition that I always disclose it in interviews if asked, which I did.
I wasn’t asked during my interview for my former program, but I was asked later in the middle of the year and was honest. This has not been cited as an issue and an APD told me explicitly it was a non issue for the program.
And it looks like my PD asks all DOs who didn’t apply with Step as a habit anyways.
I’m wondering if it would help an IM reapp to maybe re-attempt Steps 1 and add 2 and 3 to help a re-application. My MKSAP scores (I’ve continued since being let go) have soared and go much better than they were in residency so I feel like there’s a shot.
My logic for doing this is that I would get a chance to show I can score well on standardized testing, because even though any reporting of Step would show a fail on Step 1, I do believe I could exceed my low COMLEX 2 score by a significant margin when I take Step 2.
Also, I recognize I am fortunate to have a leadership core that agrees with me that reporting both all or none Step exams is an option. I also recognize that if I’m lucky enough to get re hired as a resident, that not everyone may agree with that and it may be better to show a remediated group of Step exams off the bat.
Also, let’s say this doesn’t work out. what are some other career options with a DO degree and otherwise reasonably weak resume (intermittent jobs at 2 places that've since closed down and that I can’t contact old bosses for).
I’m aware that many people are forced to start a new bachelors or even associates degree from scratch , but I’d like to *try* using my DO or even BS degree before that.
I was recently fired from medical residency. On the one hand, I’m optimistic because if I can do 80 hours a week there, then I believe I can take on most jobs. On the other hand, I’m aware the process to become an electrical engineer is quite rough.
I’m down to go get an electrical engineering degree (not sure if I can go straight to masters) and I’m willing to work minimum wage jobs while I wait for an opening.
The big thing I’m concerned about, outside of getting into a program, is the prior lack of work. Of course, I have one year in this job I got fired from but no work in the 4 years before that. In college and for a year after, I worked various day labor jobs for money and a few minimum wage jobs and have no chance of references from any of them.
What can I do to overcome the lack of a work history? And is it reasonable to try to overcome this and the difficulty of getting the degree?
I was recently fired from medical residency. On the one hand, I’m optimistic because if I can do 80 hours a week there, then I believe I can take on most jobs. On the other hand, I’m aware the market is quite rough.
I’m down to go get a CS masters (or bachelor’s If I don’t get into a masters) and I’m willing to work minimum wage jobs while I wait for an opening.
The big thing I’m concerned about is the prior lack of work. Of course, I have one year in this job I got fired from but no work in the 4 years before that. In college and for a year after, I worked various day labor jobs for money.
What can I do to overcome the lack of a work history? And is it reasonable to try to overcome this and the job market?
To make a very long story short, I was pretty solid in undergraduate, worked in multiple gap years (low level, non medical), and did have a pretty substantial med school scholarship, paying about 10k in tuition per year plus living expenses all on federal loans.
If it matters, I did experience homelessness during the gap years, though I got quite lucky and an organization helped me get an ID + clothes for job interviews reasonably quickly, and went to sleep looking at a shelter roof way more often than the night sky.
As far as how I was as a med student, I was average in scores and boards both but I was studying way, way more than my peers. Essentially, for every 4 hrs my friends put in, I was putting in at least 6. I did get evaluated for ADHD which was negative and also kept my phone away while studying if that matters.
Once I got into residency, it was pretty much trouble straight away. I could not complete notes on time, staying past sign out to complete them. also, my medical knowledge was horrifically bad.
Everyone thinks they’ve forgotten everything when they start residency, but the difference in my case is that the knowledge never came back, even with hours of studying outside the hospital.
My stated reason for termination is lack of knowledge that didn’t improve to the point they felt a repeat intern year was not indicated or useful.
As far as what I’d say I would tell others, one thing would be that, if one has time, they should study the top 20 conditions in their field thoroughly and repeatedly before they start intern year.
Of course, nothing wrong with enjoying your last month/months before you work in one of the most brutal fields work wise but I think the point I’m emphasizing is you may not have time to re learn these things in residency.
The second thing I’d say is that you really shouldn’t listen to people who say that residency “is like any other job” and that struggling in residency is due to ”lack of real world experience.”
Do I think that real world job experience helps?
Yes sure. But residency is absolutely uniquely grueling. There are very few cases, if any, where someone is working as much as a resident in a single job. It’s just simply incomparable to just about any other job.
That said, residency was the highest salary I ever had so at least there’s that.
Essentially, it’s an exceptionally toxic statement that needs to die. I know people making this statement doesn’t affect me at all; it just makes me unusually angry lol.
Anyways, I would still recommend medicine to those who want to do it, but with caveats.
Firstly, if you’re studying like way more than most others, it’s a good idea to check your study habits.
You can get away with it in med school, when there’s an abundance of time. But, especially in this field, you get to a point where you won’t have that extra time anymore and you run out.
Secondly, if you‘re in a position where you are being delayed in your medical career, whether it’s the fact you need an SMP to enter school at all because your GPA is low, or that you are being asked to repeat a medical school year (and neither of these happened to me), I’d fully embrace it.
That extra reinforcement of medical school concepts may be what you need. And it’s better it happens then instead of once you’re actually working.
Anyways, being kicked off your current career path is not that uncommon, even later in life/course of work, so I'm guess next thing is just to see what happens next.
To make a very long story short, I was pretty solid in undergraduate, worked in multiple gap years (low level, non medical), and did have a pretty substantial med school scholarship, paying about 10k in tuition per year plus living expenses all on federal loans.
If it matters, I did experience homelessness during the gap years, though I got quite lucky and an organization helped me get an ID + clothes for job interviews reasonably quickly, and went to sleep looking at a shelter roof way more often than the night sky.
As far as how I was as a med student, I was average in scores and boards both but I was studying way, way more than my peers. Essentially, for every 4 hrs my friends put in, I was putting in at least 6. I did get evaluated for ADHD which was negative and also kept my phone away while studying if that matters.
Once I got into residency, it was pretty much trouble straight away. I could not complete notes on time, staying past sign out to complete them. also, my medical knowledge was horrifically bad.
Everyone thinks they’ve forgotten everything when they start residency, but the difference in my case is that the knowledge never came back, even with hours of studying outside the hospital.
My stated reason for termination is lack of knowledge that didn’t improve to the point they felt a repeat intern year was not indicated or useful.
As far as what I’d say I would tell others, one thing would be that, if one has time, they should study the top 20 conditions in their field thoroughly and repeatedly before they start intern year.
Of course, nothing wrong with enjoying your last month/months before you work in one of the most brutal fields work wise but I think the point I’m emphasizing is you may not have time to re learn these things in residency.
The second thing I’d say is that you really shouldn’t listen to people who say that residency “is like any other job” and that struggling in residency is due to ”lack of real world experience.”
Do I think that real world job experience helps?
Yes sure. But residency is absolutely uniquely grueling. There are very few cases, if any, where someone is working as much as a resident in a single job. It’s just simply incomparable to just about any other job.
That said, residency was the highest salary I ever had so at least there’s that.
Essentially, it’s an exceptionally toxic statement that needs to die. I know people making this statement doesn’t affect me at all; it just makes me unusually angry lol.
Anyways, I would still recommend medicine to those who want to do it, but with caveats.
Firstly, if you’re studying like way more than most others, it’s a good idea to check your study habits.
You can get away with it in med school, when there’s an abundance of time. But, especially in this field, you get to a point where you won’t have that extra time anymore and you run out.
Secondly, if you‘re in a position where you are being delayed in your medical career, whether it’s the fact you need an SMP to enter school at all because your GPA is low, or that you are being asked to repeat a medical school year (and neither of these happened to me), I’d fully embrace it.
That extra reinforcement of medical school concepts may be what you need. And it’s better it happens then instead of once you’re actually working.
Anyways, being kicked off your current career path is not that uncommon, even later in life/course of work, so I'm guess next thing is just to see what happens next.
In a previous post, I discussed that I have a pretty high likelihood of be fired from residency. The conversation on that post essentially was like “wtf did you commit a crime or something?” and then when I said it was essentially lack of knowledge and underperformance due to my own lack of ability to handle both the hours and the learning outside said hours, people shifted to being more sympathetic and a few want me to get a lawyer.
My question is would this be an option in an at will state. My state‘s law is essentially “your job can fire you because your boss had a bad dream.”
FWIW, I’ve told some people also in IM residency what’s going on and they’ve said I wouldn’t be sacked at their program, but probably, once it’s established my pace of gaining knowledge is insufficient, that I’d be asked to repeat, if any of that matters.
Our contract also does suck a little bit and says nothing about repeat years and theres a few “good faith mistakes” someone could make and get fired.
I’ve pretty much a traditional pre med to residency path. In all likelihood, I’ll have my contract non renewed in July. Essentially being fired from the career I worked for 10 years towards.
I’m interested in planning a career in a different field. Ideally, a field that requires an associates degree or otherwise 1 to 2 years training would be the most preferred , though I’m open to one requiring a bachelor’s degree if I could get it in 3 years or less.
I’ll have to pay my own housing and tuition and will obviously be at a $0 income after being fired so we have to take those into account.
I did get a rare scholarship for med school so debt is not as much an issue as it is for most. I paid living expenses only so about $120,000 in debt.
The obvious hurdle will be that I would not have references and on top of that, have to explain a 10 year resume gap and/or explain losing a career I worked a decade for. This probably is going to be a huge issue for even a minimum wage job in the meantime, let alone a full new career.
What are some suggestions you have for new careers?
Edit: as far as what I think happened, I think ultimately I couldn’t handle the workload, simple as that. I feel like I could handle all the crap being thrown at me but just crumpled under the workload. We work around the max 80 hours a week and I was on a pretty intensive study plan because of noticeable knowledge deficits. I fell behind on this plan and honestly think most residents would’ve as well lol, though I was well behind most residents knowledge wise.