What am I missing to break into the honors category?

[grapples43]

I’m honestly feeling a little discouraged because I’ve complete three rotations now and have gotten high pass in every single one. This theoretically isn’t bad, except that my school has major grade inflation. I felt like I should have gotten honors in two of the rotations and I’m failing to understand where my lower grade came from. In those particular rotations my school hands out honors to 33/50% of the students. I received only positive feedback on both and felt like I performed at a high level. In one of those rotations all of my physical assignments were graded as honors (the other didn’t have graded assignments). What am I missing? What can I do? Does it matter?

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[meowfish6868]

I’m honestly feeling a little discouraged because I’ve complete three rotations now and have gotten high pass in every single one. This theoretically isn’t bad, except that my school has major grade inflation. I felt like I should have gotten honors in two of the rotations and I’m failing to understand where my lower grade came from. In those particular rotations my school hands out honors to 33/50% of the students. I received only positive feedback on both and felt like I performed at a high level. In one of those rotations all of my physical assignments were graded as honors (the other didn’t have graded assignments). What am I missing? What can I do? Does it matter?

Have you tried asking your attendings or residents for feedback? I found that it was helpful to ask, “What do you think I need to work on improving?” or “I feel like I could be doing better at __ (forming DDx/A&P/ special physical exam, etc), do you have any suggestions about I can improve it?” Provided that they are willing to give accurate and honest feedback, it’s a good way to figure out what you need to be doing to get honors. It’s much better to get feedback and improve your performance before your final evals. I never felt comfortable directly asking how to get honors and the phrasing above proved to be really helpful in 3rd year.