The University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) colleges of medicine and dentistry are now grading some courses as pass/fail, following a national trend that has shown increasing numbers of academic centers adopting this system over the past decade.
Some courses at the College of Dentistry will be pass/fail, while most first-year and second-year courses will remain on a letter-grade scale. The College of Medicine has gone to pass/fail for its preclinical years (M1-2).
Pass/fail grading tends to result in a favorable impact on student wellness, according to Janet Guthmiller, DDS, PhD, dean of the College of Dentistry. It is a move in congruence with UNMC’s greater emphasis on campus wellness and resiliency, the school reports.
Pass/fail also eliminates “grade grubbing” and “point fishing,” according to a survey of medical schools that have made the move conducted by Gary Beck Dallaghan, PhD, UNMC’s assistant dean for medical education and director of the Office of Medical Education. Instead of rewarding “gunners” for individual achievement, the new system incentivizes teamwork.
“The pass/fail grading system reduces the competitiveness of those at the top of the class and encourages shared learning amongst students,” said Gerald Moore, MD, senior associate dean for academic affairs at UNMC.
Clinical “global” pass/fail courses “place focus on patient-centered comprehensive care rather than on grades and takes some of the stress” off students, said Yun Saksena, DMD, the School of Dentistry’s associate dean for education.
Studies also have confirmed “greater group cohesion” with pass/fail in addition to reduced stress, UNMC says. Plus, schools in Beck Dallaghan’s survey reported students doing as well as under previous grading systems and often better.
Medical school match rates appear largely unchanged, UNMC says, as pass/fail has become an accepted standard nationwide. All of the Ivy League schools, for example, use it. Also, the University of Missouri School of Medicine has used pass/fail for 20 years.
But Moore said that the College of Medicine will develop a way to identify those who excel at the top of the class to best position students for matches and scholarships. Saksena said the College of Dentistry offers rigorous feedback within modules and will mirror examination-agency grading scales while preparing students for licensing exams.
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