Student Achievements

Student Achievement

The medical and graduate health professions programs 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.

Gaduate educational programs are only offered in 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.

Brock Virginia Health Sciences students are successful -- they graduate on time, 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. 

Program Completion

Graduation rates are 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 EVMS School of Health Professions programs is two years. Extenuating circumstances may delay some students' progress toward graduation. The EVMS target graduation rate is based on the national average and the 100% normal time (4-year) 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 EVMS School of Health Professions programs because of a lack of national program-specific data. The school has chosen to focus on the analysis of graduation rates for the EVMS 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 100% of the normal time to completion, without regard to whether students have part-time or full-time status. 

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 MD program, 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 92% for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) licensure exams, 92% for the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination (PANCE), and 71% for the National Board for Surgical Technology and Surgical Assisting (NCCSA) exam, 71% for the Certified Surgical First Assistant (CSFA) exam, and 75% 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.

Postgraduate Training

A third institutional student achievement measure addresses the success of EVMS medical graduates gaining acceptance into postgraduate training (e.g., residencies).The Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (“SOAP”) provides a uniform system for programs to offer unfilled positions to eligible unmatched or partially matched applicants through a series of offer rounds during Match Week. The EVMS rationale for the target threshold is to be at or above the National Post SOAP placement rate, thus ensuring the comparability of EVMS graduates with graduates from other medical schools. 

Table 3

EVMS Match Rates