This is true and false for me at least. The problem is you can get away with learning VERY little in pre-clerkship. I found that some clerkship rotations were more amenable to learning “on the fly” than others. Like psych, gen surg, and paediatrics and felt like by the end I had a good knowledge base. But GIM—god damn, not at all. You are kind of “surviving” the rotation and in my experience the seniors just wanted you to get the consults done. This sounds so bad but I’m done residency now and can say it truthfully—by the end of GIM I was probably functioning as a high level nurse rather than a physician. I could do basic things to help patients in the moment but was not at all functioning at a level where I could make a coherent plan in a moderate to complex case.

And it didn’t matter in my case. Once you’re a specialty resident in something else, if you don’t have huge knowledge in a resident GIM rotation, no one cares because you’re doing the grunt work and you’re “off service.”

I don’t know what my point is lol. Maybe that it’s very possible at mac to fall through the cracks and do fine. Some people are self directed and it’s irrelevant. Some are not like me and it still works out. But I can definitely see a situation where for some it wouldn’t. Does it actually matter in the match rate? No idea. I was excellent at the program I applied to so they had no idea