Student Course and Clerkship Evaluations

Introduction

One of the quality measures of its medical education that the Ponce Health Sciences University School of Medicine uses is the evaluations of courses, clerkships, and faculty the students complete. The response rates of these evaluations have been variable, and several measures have been taken to improve the rates with limited success.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education, in the 8.5 element of accreditation, requires that “in evaluating medical education program quality, a medical school has formal processes in place to collect and consider medical student evaluations of their courses, clerkships, and teachers, and other relevant information.”

Rule

To promote a more accurate input from the student body of their medical education evaluation, the completion of the course and clerkship evaluation by the students will be a requirement for all courses and clerkships.

The followings strategies should be employed to promote the implementation of this norm:

1. In the orientation period, the course and clerkship directors should share examples of changes made in the course based on the student feedback collected through the course evaluations completed by the students.
2. Remind the students their responses are going to be shared with the faculty in an aggregate form.
3. Students who do not respond receive automatic reminders through Canvas and Med-Hub platforms. Please encourage participation.
4. Announce to the students, a few days before the evaluation period begins, that the course and clerkship evaluation will open.
5. Take 10 minutes of last semester’s small group discussion, laboratory, or lecture time to request the student complete the evaluation.
6. The student course evaluation outcomes must be reviewed by the course and clerkship directors every semester. The course director and clerkship director must present the average result for each area, strengths, weaknesses, and recurrent comments during the presentations in the annual course evaluation by the curriculum subcommittees. The action plan to be presented to the MPCC must include changes deemed appropriate to improve the course/clerkship in response to the students’ concerns.

This norm should be included in the syllabus of all courses and clerkships and will be effective at the beginning of the academic year 2022-2023.