u/West-Wrong

I’m planning to apply to MPA programs focused on health and public policy for Fall 2027 after leaving medical school. My school has confirmed that I remained in good academic standing, but I could not advance to clinical training because I did not achieve the required passing score on the licensing examination. There were no conduct or professionalism issues.

My background includes several years of clinical research, peer-reviewed publications, healthcare employment, and community-service work. I also plan to continue conducting research during the coming year.

Has anyone seen how MPA admissions committees evaluate this type of professional-school transition? Would it be considered a major barrier, or something that can be addressed briefly in an optional addendum? I’m not looking for a prediction of my admission chances, but just advice on how to disclose it appropriately and demonstrate readiness for graduate study.

I am planning to apply to MPA and MHA programs for Fall 2027, particularly programs focused on healthcare management, health policy, and public service. I would appreciate insight from anyone who has worked in graduate admissions, attended an MPA/MHA program, or made a similar transition from a professional program.

I completed approximately two years of medical school but was unable to progress to the clinical phase because I did not pass Step 1. My school has confirmed that I remained in good academic standing, but I was unable to advance to the next stage of medical training because I did not achieve the required passing score on the licensing examination.

There were no professionalism, conduct, or disciplinary issues. I also hold a completed bachelor’s degree. My broader background includes several years of clinical research at an academic medical center, peer-reviewed publications, healthcare employment, volunteering, and community-health work. I plan to continue working and conducting research during the year before I apply.

I understand that I will need to submit transcripts from every institution I attended and that I should be completely honest about why I left medical school. I am not asking anyone to predict whether I will be admitted. I am mainly trying to understand how an MPA or MHA admissions committee would interpret this situation.

Would the dean’s confirmation that I remained in good academic standing meaningfully distinguish this from an academic dismissal? Is a failed licensing examination generally treated as a major barrier when applying to a nonclinical professional degree such as an MPA or MHA? Would it be better to address it briefly in an optional academic addendum rather than make it part of the main personal statement? Should I obtain a formal letter from the dean now, even if programs do not initially request one?

I would also appreciate perspectives on whether another productive year of research, strong professional recommendations, and successful recent quantitative coursework would provide meaningful evidence of readiness for graduate study. I am particularly interested in whether this history might affect merit-scholarship consideration more than admission itself.

Thank you for any candid advice, especially from admissions professionals, current MPA/MHA students, or people who transitioned out of medicine into healthcare administration or public policy.

I studied hard for these exams. I failed them three times.

It is difficult to put into words what that means when the path you are on is one that most people around you seem to complete successfully. Each failure carried its own weight, but the third one felt especially final. There was the disappointment of seeing the result, the embarrassment of knowing that most students pass, and the shock and sadness of my parents, who had encouraged me to go straight into medicine without taking gap years or spending much time exploring what I wanted for myself. And for a while, I thought the only acceptable response was to feel devastated.

And part of me is devastated. I am grieving the years I invested, the effort I gave, the identity I built around becoming a doctor, and the future that my family and I had imagined. Failure still hurts, even when the path may not have been right for you.

But underneath that grief, there is another feeling I did not expect: relief.

For the first time in a long time, I no longer feel that I have to keep forcing myself down a path simply because I began it, because other people believed in it, or because leaving would make all the years behind me seem wasted. I can finally admit that medicine may never have aligned with me as deeply as I wanted it to. I can choose a graduate path based on my actual interests rather than on obligation, momentum, prestige, or fear of disappointing the people I love.

I do not yet know exactly what comes next. There is still a lot of soul-searching ahead of me. I am trying to separate what I genuinely want from what I was taught to want, and to understand who I am outside of medical school and outside of other people’s expectations.
That uncertainty is frightening, but it also feels honest.
I failed something I worked very hard for, and I am not pretending that it does not hurt. But perhaps this failure is not only the end of a dream. Perhaps it is also the end of living a life that I never fully chose.

For the first time, the future is unwritten.
And strangely, I feel free.

I’m looking for honest career advice as I prepare to leave medical school after failing a required board exam three times. I’m in my mid-20s.

This has been painful and humbling, especially because I worked hard and entered medical school believing that becoming a physician was the path I was supposed to follow. I went directly from college to medical school without taking time to explore other possibilities, partly because of family expectations. Although I am disappointed by how this chapter ended, I also feel an unexpected sense of relief. For the first time, I can seriously ask what kind of work fits my abilities and interests rather than continuing on a path because I have already invested so much in it.

My undergraduate background was in a humanities-focused premedical field, and I did well academically. Most of my professional experience has been in academic medical research, particularly medical imaging, clinical research, and projects involving data analysis and artificial intelligence. I have contributed to published research, presented at conferences, reviewed scientific work, and helped organize academic programs and meetings.

I also have experience with teaching, tutoring, mentoring, scientific editing, community health education, hospital volunteering, and public-health-related work. I have especially enjoyed analyzing complex information, writing and editing, explaining technical ideas, teaching, organizing projects, and connecting science with broader social and human questions. (I have always entertained the thought of intersecting between foreign policy and healthcare — not sure if that makes any sense.)

I am beginning to wonder whether direct clinical care was ever the best fit for me. Some fields I am considering include public health, health policy, clinical research, research administration, medical or scientific writing, healthcare consulting, bioethics, health technology, regulatory affairs, medical communications, and nonprofit work. I am also open to careers outside healthcare if my experience could transfer well.

Based on this background, what careers would you genuinely suggest exploring? Which paths might offer reasonable growth without requiring me to completely start over? Would a graduate degree such as an MPH, MPP, MS, or MBA be useful, or would it make more sense to work first?

I would also appreciate honest thoughts about how employers may view someone who attended medical school but did not complete the degree. I know my background is academically strong but somewhat specialized, and I am trying to understand where it has real value.

I’m not looking for reassurance or a way to recreate the status of medicine. I’m trying to build a career that I have consciously chosen.

I’m in my mid-20s and recently had to withdraw from medical school after completing my second year.

I didn’t feel too passionate about medicine in the first place, but I thought that if I sacrificed now then it’ll pay dividends in the future. Over the past several months, however, I’ve been dealing with significant health issues, and at the same time my family has been going through serious financial and personal difficulties. I also couldn’t complete my board exams because of everything going on.

The hardest part has been watching my parents because I’ve always cared about their feelings. I went into medicine because that’s what they believed that a smart person should do to have a solid job and reputation in society.

My mom keeps saying that all of her prayers as a mother went in vain and that she doesn’t understand why God would let this happen. She can’t seem to accept that someone can work incredibly hard and still not have things work out. She believes there has to be another explanation.

My dad has also been heartbroken. At one point he told me he wished something would happen to him because he was so devastated. Hearing that completely crushed me.

I feel guilty because I know they’re grieving the future they imagined for me, but I’m also grieving my own dream while trying to recover physically and deal with everything happening at home. I don’t have the emotional capacity to carry all of our grief at the same time.

For those of you who come from immigrant or Asian families, or whose parents had enormous hopes tied to your education, how did you cope with their disappointment? Did things eventually get better? How did you help them accept a future that looked different from the one everyone expected?

I’m not giving up on having a meaningful career in healthcare. I’m hoping to continue doing research and pursue further education in my home state once my health and family situation are more stable. Right now, though, I’m struggling with how to help my parents through this when I barely know how to process it myself.

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been through something similar.

Back in late April, two months after the US and Israel hit Iran, the magazine called oil traders delusional for pricing in $88 Brent by year-end. Traders were supposedly living in "la-la land." Brent is now a bit above $70. So the traders weren't the ones in la-la land.

To their credit, they didn't quietly memory-hole it. This week's leader (July 2nd) is a straight admission that closes on a line I can't stop thinking about: "Sorry for our mistake. It will happen again." Which is either refreshing honesty or a very elegant way of pre-forgiving themselves for the next one. They give two reasons. First, they bet Trump and Iran would both dig in over the Strait of Hormuz. Instead Trump folded the moment American drivers started screaming at the pump, a June deal got crude moving again, and the supply panic drained out of the market. Fine. That's a political read that didn't pan out, and political reads are coin flips half the time.

The second reason is the part I think most people will skim past, and it's the actual story: China. Crude imports down five million barrels a day versus a year ago. Down, while prices were falling. That's a demand signal the size of a small continent, and the paper basically concedes nobody, them included, sized it right. Beijing cut consumption and built a buffer out of reserves satellites can't see and that blur into corporate inventories. If you want the reason oil sits at $70 instead of $88, it isn't really Hormuz. It's that the world's second-largest economy needed far less oil than anyone modeled, and can obscure how much it's actually holding.

Then the peak-Economist move. To swat down the running joke that they're a reliable contrarian indicator, they fed roughly 7,000 of this century's leaders to an AI and concluded that when they're only moderately out of consensus their record is good, and it's the wild swings that blow up. Convenient? Obviously. Probably also true. And I sort of respect it, most institutions respond to being wrong by never bringing it up again, not by grading their own homework in public.

The wrap-up is the usual free-market catechism, which is that a price in a deep market is the closest thing we have to the pooled judgment of everyone, you can't reliably beat it, but you should still hold views because a market with nothing to aggregate is just noise. They compare forecasting to free speech, which is a lot of hat for one oil call, but the core point survives in that outsource all your opinions to the prediction market and you never understand why anything is priced where it is.

Two things I'm curious what this sub thinks:

1. Is the China import collapse structural or a pause? Because if Chinese demand has genuinely rolled over rather than just caught its breath, then "wrong by $18" is the least interesting thing in the whole piece.

2. And does anyone actually trade The Economist as a contrarian signal, or is that just a bit people repeat? The 1999 "$5 oil" prediction gets dragged out every single time, but remembering the embarrassments isn't the same as having a track record.

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some advice or guidance about my 8-month-old Shih Tzu, who has become a very picky eater. We’re feeling pretty stuck and honestly a little hopeless about how to get him to eat consistently.

We started out with puppy kibble from Pedigree when he first joined our family as a newborn, but he didn’t seem interested in it for long. We then transitioned to boiled rice and boiled chicken with no salt, which he liked, but we knew that wasn’t nutritionally complete or enough for a growing puppy. After that, we tried Freshpet chicken slices, which he ate for a while but eventually got tired of. Now we’re trying Purina Pro Plan wet food, and he’s refusing that too.

We’ve been trying the method of putting the food down for about 15 minutes and then taking it away, so he learns that this is his meal and there won’t be endless options. But today, he refused to eat the food we put out and later he had what seemed like hunger vomit. That made us feel awful and unsure if we’re doing the right thing.

We’ve also tried hand-feeding him, but even then he’ll sometimes push the food out with his tongue. He still likes boiled chicken, so we’ve tried mixing some into his food, but it feels like he just picks around things or eventually refuses the whole meal.

He doesn’t seem to like kibble at all, including Royal Canin Shih Tzu kibble. We’re worried about creating worse habits by constantly switching foods, but we’re also worried when he doesn’t eat and then throws up from an empty stomach. He poops and pees as usual, so we haven't noticed any digestive issues so far.

Has anyone dealt with this persistently with their Shih Tzu puppy? How did you get them to eat consistently? Are there any foods, feeding routines, toppers, or strategies that worked for you? We’d really appreciate any help, advice, or reassurance. We’re planning to check with our vet too, just to rule out anything medical.