1. Grading Policy for the Clerkships
The Program Director completes a final assessment form for each student in a core clerkship. The form requires narrative comments, grades in individual components and a final summative grade. The narrative comments summarize the student’s clinical performance and, importantly, professional behavior. This includes attendance, rapport with patients and staff and the extent to which the students developed the required competencies for that core. This narrative section offers the faculty the opportunity to provide additional personalized evaluative information beyond the letter grade. These comments are quoted in the MSPE. An additional section allows for constructive comments that are not quoted in the MSPE. Students should make every effort to review these comments as soon as possible after completion of a rotation. The opinions of the physicians who have worked with a student are critical for self improvement by the student. In particular, constructive criticisms can help a student develop into a more competent physician. Students can review these comments after they complete the student feedback questionnaire. The evaluation forms are available to print from SMS.
The final grade in the clerkship represents a semi-quantitative average of these components:
- Clerkship Evaluation 75%
- NBME Clinical Subject Exam grade 10%
- Student Logs 10%
- Attendance 5%
The students take the NBME Clinical Subject Exam during the final week of their clerkship. The Office of Clinical Sciences receives the scores from the NBME and update the grades shortly afterwards.
Students who fail the NBME exam but receive a passing grade on their final evaluation will have to retake and pass the NBME exam. Students are given two attempts before remediation is suggested by the clinical Dean.