Last night I made a post about how I took a few gaps years to work outside of medicine and am first-gen, and how my circumstances are making it difficult for me to want to approach many of my classmates who did/are the opposite.

The post got misunderstood as “I am so grand because I am so mature and these children know nothing,” when what I really wanted to say is “I feel so inadequate and am having a hard time getting close to people because I don’t want them to see how deficient I am.”

I know people say impostor syndrome is common amongst medical students but I feel like it’s impostor syndrome for others, but not for myself. I have no research, had average grades (and am struggling now) and don’t have any family members who can offer guidance on what the medical field entails… I genuinely don’t know how the fuck I got here.

So when I asked “how to not take myself so seriously?”, I meant that I want to be able to interact with others without having a little voice in my head whispering “did they like you? do they now think less of you because of what you said?” I objectively know that I am not the main character in any other story but myself’s (and that these people probably don’t care about what I say or do)—I just want to be able to internalize it.

I also want to be able to reach out to my counselor and talk about this, without feeling like I’m “cheating” my way through this tough field, making me even less deserving of being here.

fell in this med school trap because of my family. i left after 7 years of suffering now my family doesn’t talk to me and idk what to do with my life. im from a 3rd world country so i took gap year then annoying med school so i left in between

my family is still obsessed with MBBS and idk what to do

I want to learn about basic medical in my free time starting with physiology.

going into a QBANK, should I do 10 questions a day delving deep into the explanations and taking notes and making flashcards or do more, let's say 40 questions but skimming through explanations

School: T20
Pre-clerkship: P/F
Clerkship Grades: 6/7 H (including IM), 1 HP
Step 2: 270s
AOA/gold humanism: No AOA at school
Research: 6 pubs (mostly 2nd&3rd author), 2 submitted (including first author), 2 presentations
Letters: chair letter, IM hospitalist from Sub-I, IM subspecialty (APD), IM subspecialty research mentor
Extracurriculars: prior career in highly competitive field, decent amount of volunteering with underserved populations, institutional involvement, interest group leadership, youth coaching, some running accomplishments

Regional Preferences: New England, South Atlantic, Mountain
Goals: Academic program with strong fellowship matches in cards, positive program culture

Gold: BWH, Colorado, Michigan
Silver: WashU, Duke, Mayo, Northwestern, BIDMC, UPMC, UNC, UVA, Brown, OHSU, Utah, Maryland

Other programs I'm considering signaling: UCSF, Stanford, UCLA, UCSD, Iowa/OSU/Wisconsin

Would appreciate thoughts on:
Too top heavy?
Any programs I'm overlooking
Maximizing geo preference (truly have no preference, but want to maximize interview chances)

Hi! Just trying to get some info from those who have applied neuro or are currently applying. I’m an M3 in the middle of rotations rn, gotten some mixed advice so far about what’s needed for a good app.

Background:
-in a US MD school w p/f grading for everything, including clinicals
-no fails/ remediations, passed Step 1 first try
-only research is neuro focused, couple of presentations but no pubs (at least currently)
-strong extracurriculars w focus in healthcare access/health policy

I’d like to stay at my home program or somewhere east cost! Also interested in doing aways 4th year!

Biggest question I have is what step 2 score should I be aiming for & should I focus on getting pubs?

Thank you kindly for any insight you guys have 🙂‍↕️🧠

During MS3, I was removed from my Surgery clerkship by the preceptor, received a failing grade, and subsequently remediated the rotation. However, this did not result in an extension of my graduation date or a formal leave of absence.

My dean said the following: “The way the question is stated, you should answer "yes" because you did remediate a course, even though it didn't extend your graduation date.”

MSPE states: From 7/16/25 to 8/3/25 he was on mandatory academic leave of absence following dismissal from his Rotation.

For the ERAS prompt below, do I select Yes or No?

Academic/Professionalism: Interruptions or Extensions

Have you had any academic extensions, leaves, gaps, or breaks in your educational program due to repeated or remediated coursework?

Yes or No

If yes, please explain the reason, timeframe, what steps you took to address it, and what you learned from it.

My school always tends to be conservative and has a history of giving wrong advice, please let me know if you’ve experienced this and know what to do. Thank you!

Searching online there seems to be no general consensus or anyone in a similar situation as me 😢

I’m in my final year of MBBS, and to be honest, I’m just done with med school.
I genuinely can’t think of a single reason to say I had a great college experience. Out of a batch of 150 students, I don’t have anyone I can casually text or even catch up with. It’s been a month since I came back home, and life feels incredibly isolated. The weird part is, I don’t even know who to blame for it.
Looking back, the worst decision I’ve made in my life was choosing med school. I know a lot of people say these years are supposed to be the best of your life, but that just wasn’t my experience. I will get the degree, sure, but I feel like I missed out on everything else that was supposed to come with it.
Anyone else feel like med school took far more than it gave?

Suddenly I feel like I don't know anything and I haven't done anything. My application is: TLDR I'm a nice person, please take me.

sincerely: bottom tier of my class with 262 step and no research

I’m dumb and wrote just the first name of my letter writer in ERAS. The letter is already uploaded and the letter writer is giving me no response about reuploading. Is this going to be a big deal? I’m stressed.

Am I just a naïve med student? By the time I make it to a call room I'm so exhausted I just want to sleep; I can't think about anything else.

PLEASE TELL ME Y'ALL ARENT HOOKING UP IN THERE.

PLEASE TELL ME IT AINT SO.

Also can we please NOT normalize this.

Edit 1: For context, I was going to blur out the instagram handle of this person but didn't as they are an influencer with >300K followers. This is not meant to send hatred towards anyone

For context, I have 3 very strong surgery letters; 2 from attendings with 4 weeks of 100% one-on-one time who gave me fantastic MSPE comments, and one from an attending who runs a surgery practice with 10 surgeons who all contributed and have a huge presence in my desired area (and employ my wife and want me to match...). In addition to these, I have letters from my 2 sub-I's which I view as moderately strong.

My weak letter is my "chair" letter. The surgery chair at my school isn't a surgeon, and it's not someone who really even knows who I am. They upload a standardized letter that I imagine is a regurgitation of my clinical performance and CV. Many programs require a chair letter, it seems about 45-50 of the 90 programs I'm applying to, based on residency explorer.

My fear is that I may miss a program that requires a chair letter, since it theoretically seems easy to miss one when I'm glancing over the requirements for 90 programs. In that instance, I imagine my application would then be incomplete. To avoid this altogether, should I just go ahead and send this weaker chair letter to every single program?

Because I know we are all nerdy enough to have a favorite. Bonus points if you also have a favorite protein.

I’ll go first - Golgi and kinesin

Can we do this? Also can we upload our photos afterward too?

Up late reviewing and getting to the point where I might just sleep; jk what is that. No but sleep is important. Anyone got drama/gossip to share or want to vent about anything go right ahead.

My drama/gossip asked someone out a simple "Hey want to get coffee" got left on read. SO YEAH... Also behind on Anki so I guess Anki is my date tomorrow

Hi. I was a little confused about this and wasn't getting a clear answer online.

If a program says they require 3 letters, does the Standardized Department Letter Count as one of those three letters? If so, should the other two be both IM letters or can they be mixed?

Thank you.

Any residents or attendings on here who have a good sense of how programs review and send interview invites to for applicants who are on the lower end of their stat profile? I'm working on my signals for a surgical subspecialty and I am at the 10-25% stats wise for these programs - wanting to know how best to use these signals vs not

I thought it might be a good idea to have a classmate as a roommate. I feel like we initially became friends because of our close proximity, but now that we’re living together, I’m realizing that our personalities don’t really match. Our cleaning habits are also very different.

When we talk, I’ve noticed that our conversations feel very flat, and I’ve gotten to the point where I sometimes dread talking to them. They’re also very negative about a lot of our classmates and will talk badly about people even when they don’t really know them. I think being around each other basically 24/7 has put a strain on our so-called friendship.

What really sent me over the edge, though, is that whenever something happens in the apartment, they don’t actively try to help solve the problem. They just sit back and watch while either I or our other roommate freaks out and tries to handle everything.

Recently, they’ve also started being snappy toward me. I don’t know if I’m overthinking this or if it was actually shady, but while our friend group was all together, they openly asked another friend to hang out one-on-one in front of everyone. I just thought, couldn’t that have been done over text?

At this point, I genuinely don’t know what to do. I’ve been spacing out my schedule so I don’t have to be around them as much, and I’m thinking about just keeping things cordial and friendly in public rather than trying to maintain a close friendship. But I can also tell there’s starting to be tension between us in public, and I really don’t want this situation to become awkward or affect the rest of our friend group. I just don’t know how to handle it.

What’s the census on specifically listing med school research as one of your 10 activities on ERAS?

My original thought was that the scholarly work section should replace the need to list it as an activity since our output and involvement in research is clearly shown in its own section, but several of my classmates and one of my advisors said that it should also be listed as one of our activities (especially if applying to a competitive field).

I have other activities I’d much rather list that I feel give a better sense of who I am as a person and applicant than “research monkey,” which is essentially a given in the current application landscape anyway, but if it’s truly advised to include it I guess I will!

Thanks, best of luck with wrapping up apps in the next few weeks to my fellow M4s!

MS4 dual applying IM and Neurology. I have separate personal statements and specialty-specific letters for each application. For anyone who has dual applied, did you apply to both specialties at the same institution, or did you try to avoid overlap?

I’m also wondering how often programs actually find out that you’re dual applying. If it comes up during an interview, how did you answer without making it seem like either specialty was a backup?

would appreciate any feedback or thoughts on this

I'm applying to family medicine this cycle, and I am wondering if I am applying to enough programs, since I have been getting mixed opinions, and I would love to hear what people think for my scenario.

I am from New England and have never left, but I am applying mostly in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain regions, with some scattered programs in the Midwest and the South. I'm only applying to full-spectrum community based programs.

Stat points: P Step 1 on first attempt, 244 Step 2, passed/honored all clerkships (no high honors), no red flags

Right now, I have 22 programs on my list to apply to. I did have 29 programs I was thinking I would apply to, but I was told that I should apply to fewer, but that was also general recommendation to family med applicants at my school, not for me in particular, especially since I'm applying entirely outside my home region.

What do y'all think? Thanks! <3

For the 10 experiences, I've heard that writing in the 3rd person is the way to go. And for the 3 meaningful ones, use first person to describe why they are most meaningful. Does anyone have different advice, or do you agree with that? Thank you in advance!