Student Achievements

The medical and graduate health professions programs at EVMS reflect the institution's mission as an academic health center dedicated to achieving excellence and fostering the highest ethical standards in medical and health professions education, research, and patient care. EVMS only offers graduate educational programs in the medical and health professions. Therefore, at the institutional level, student achievement is measured primarily by the ability of students to complete their designated program of study in a timely manner, to gain entry into graduate residencies in the case of medicine, and to pass required licensure examinations. EVMS students are successful -- they graduate on time, they pass required licensure examinations on their first attempt, and are accepted into the next phase of required education in their specialty if there is such a requirement. Specific measures of student achievement include on-time program completion, first-time pass rates on licensure exams, and success in residency placement. They are discussed in the following narrative.

Program Completion

Graduation rates serve as one measure of student achievement that indicates whether EVMS is fulfilling its mission. Students are expected to graduate within a specified number of years based on their particular academic program requirements. The normal completion time for the MD program is four years. The normal completion time for most School of Health Professions programs is two years. Extenuating circumstances may delay some students' progress toward graduation. The EVMS School of Medicine target graduation rate is based on the four-year national graduation rates for U.S. Medical School M.D.-only students published by the Association of American Medical Colleges. It is not possible to benchmark national graduation rates for School of Health Professions programs because of a lack of national program-specific data. EVMS has chosen to focus on the analysis of graduation rates for the School of Health Professions by using aggregate institutional data. The EVMS School of Health Professions' target graduation rate is a five-year rolling average graduation rate based on the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System's definition of on-time graduation as the ratio of the total number of completers within 150% of the normal time to completion, without regard to whether students have part-time or full-time status. Thus, the EVMS rationale for each target threshold is for graduation rates to approximate either the national four-year graduation rates for the School of Medicine or the historical rolling five-year graduation rate for the School of Health Professions as shown in Table 1. Approximately 60% of undergraduates nationally graduate within six years of enrollment. There is no comparable national data for graduate programs. Consequently, EVMS analyzes its historical average graduation rates and uses the rolling five-year average as its target.

Table 1

EVMS Graduation Rates

Licensure Examinations

A second measure of student achievement at EVMS is the first-time pass rate on licensure exams for the Doctor of Medicine, Physician Assistant, Surgical Assisting, and Pathologists' Assistant programs. The target threshold is the national average first-time pass rates on licensure examinations as the gold standard to ensure comparability with student achievement nationwide. The national first-time pass rates approximate 95% for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) licensure exams, 97% for the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination (PANCE), and 87% for the National Board for Surgical Technology and Surgical Assisting (NCCSA) exam, 58.6% for the Certified Surgical First Assistant (CSFA) exam, and 95% for the American Society for Clinical Pathology's (ASCP) Board of Certification exam. The rationale for the target threshold measures is that EVMS seeks to be at or above the national average first-time pass rates to ensure the quality of its programs. Table 2 documents that EVMS successfully exceeds threshold measures.

Table 2

EVMS and National First-time Pass Rates

Postgraduate Training

A third institutional student achievement measure addresses the success of EVMS medical graduates gaining acceptance into postgraduate training (e.g., residencies). The national match rate is 94%. The EVMS rationale for the target threshold is to be at or above the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) placement rate, thus ensuring the comparability of EVMS graduates with graduates from other medical schools. 

Table 3

Residency Match Rates