EVALUATION & GRADES
To obtain a passing grade, all of the following requirements must be met
1. Adhere to all applicable University of Virginia and School of Medicine codes of student conduct.
- You are on your honor to comply with all clerkship requirements as detailed herein.
2. Submit a properly completed Neurology Passport.
- see "Activities & Schedules".
3. Receive a passing score on your OASIS Clerkship Student Evaluation.
- These are completed by your service attendings and residents.
- Any student who receives an overall grade of "marginal" or "unsatisfactory" from any evaluator will be asked to meet with the Clerkship Director to discuss and develop a remediation plan.
4. You must submit a completed "Student Evaluation of the Neurology Clerkship" form in OASIS.
5. You must complete the Clerkship/Faculty Evaluation in OASIS
- These are our primary quality control measures; they ensure we are meeting your learning needs and teaching appropriately.
6. You must pass the local take-home Knowledge/Application exam in Neurology with a score >70%
7. You must pass the NBME "shelf examination" in Neurology
- A passing score is at or above the national 5th percentile (as defined by NBME for the time period from which the most recently available NBME percentiles were calculated. ).
- For more information on the neurology subject examination from the National Board of Medical Examinerssee http://www.nbme.org/programs-services/medical-schools/subject-examinations/clinical-science-disciplines.html
- It is a closed-book, tightly proctored test.
- The test is on the morning of the last day of the clerkship.
- Do not bring backpacks, pagers, cell phones etc. to the exam room.
- Use the bathroom before you enter the exam room.
Grades
The Clerkship Director will submit, via the OASIS system, a report to the Dean's office including written description of the student's clerkship performance. This may comment on professionalism, attendance, and compliance with clerkship's requirements as appropriate. It may include direct quotations from individual evaluators, summative assessments, qualitative statements, and formative feedback. Both strong points and weak points in performance may be included in the narrative. Except under extenuating circumstances this will be delivered approximately 5-6 weeks after the conclusion of the clerkship.
Clerkship grades will be calculated as follows:
1. Clinical evaluations
- Account for 65% of overall grade
- Weighted by exposure and evaluator type
- i. Attendings weight higher than residents
- ii. PGY-1 evaluations are not included in this weighted calculation, but will be used to support the narrative summary comments
- iii. OASIS exposure descriptions by time
- 1. Extensive (x7)
- 2. Moderate (x3)
- 3. Minimal (x1)
- Since OASIS defines Superior and Honors levels as representing the top 20% of the class and uses UVa students as the benchmark, most students should expect to obtain a B (typical performance). Only weighted scores of Superior or Honors will qualify to receive an A
- OASIS reports an unweighted arithmetic average of all evaluators, it may therefore vary from the final clerkship evaluation of clinical performance, which is weighted (see above).
- The Clerkship Director will not override any individual evaluator's determination of a student's performance for the purpose of grade adjustments.
2. Knowledge/Application exam
- a. 25% contribution to overall grade
- b. Open-book multiple choice exam, subject to Honor Code standards
- c. Usually about 50 case-based questions focus on course objectives
- d. Minimum passing score is 70%
- e. Among passing scores, actual percent correct rather than letter grade equivalent will be used in the final grade calculation. However, a rough approximation of letter grade equivalents on the test is as follows:
- i. 94-100 = A
- ii. 90-93 = A-
- iii. 87-89 = B+
- iv. 84-86 = B
- v. 80-83 = B-
- vi. 77-79 = C+
- vii. 74-76 = C
- viii. 70-73 = C-
- ix. Scores lower than 70 receive no credit and require remediation.
- x. Adjustments (curve) will be applied if mean <81
- xi. Item validity and discrimination analyses are performed on all questions on all exam administrations.
- Individual students' test scores will not be adjusted on questions answered correctly by ³50% of students on the test administration in question.
- Items answered correctly by <50% of students on a test administration are NOT automatically considered invalid
3. NBME Shelf exam
- a. 10% contribution to overall grade
- b. Percentile based on national quarterly adjusted norms from prior academic year
- i. >80%ile = A
- ii. 20-79%ile = B
- iii. 5-19%ile = C
- iv. Scores <5%ile receive no credit and require remediation
4. Overall Grade:
a.. To receive a passing grade in neurology, the student
i. Must pass NBME (³5th percentile)
ii. Must pass Neurology Knowledge/Application exam
(>70%)
iii.. Must pass clinical evaluations with weighted
performance above "marginal"
iv... Must complete all other clerkship requirements as noted
in the syllabus
b. If i.-iv. are met, then letter grade is calculated as follows:
i. Clinical grade weighted at 65%
ii. Knowledge Exam = 25%
iii. Shelf exam = 10%
iv. Extra credit, if assigned
c. Final letter grade will be determined solely by these criteria
d. Requests for grade adjustment after submission to the Dean's Office can only be considered when there is evidence that erroneous or incorrect data was used in calculation of the final grade.
If any of these requirements for a passing grade are not met, you must see the Neurology Clerkship Director immediately to discuss remediating the clerkship, in part or in total. The final remediation decisions are made by the Medical School's Student Academic Standards & Achievement Committee, acting on the Clerkship Director's recommendation.