The students at the UC Davis School of Medicine recently completed the Independent Student Analysis (ISA) in preparation for our upcoming re-accreditation in 2022.  Student leaders developed the survey, distributed it to their peers, analyzed the results and are ready to share the school's strengths, weaknesses and next steps. 

Since a key goal for the ISA survey is to share the student body's thoughtful and constructive assessment of the school's strengths and weaknesses, we were beyond grateful that we received an overall response rate of 94% with every class above 90%!  This exceeded our expectations and surpassed the response rate from our previous re-accreditation.  Please see a summary below from our ISA student leaders:

Strengths:

  1. Office of the Associate Dean of Students/Student Affairs (Dr. Jain): accessibility, aware of student concerns, and responsiveness to student problems
  2. Office of Associate Dean for Educational Programs/Medical Education (Dr. Olson): accessibility, aware of student concerns, and responsiveness to student problems
  3. Library and Information Resources: ease of access to library resources and holdings & quality of library support and services
  4. Students Services: adequacy of Office of Student and Residency Diversity (OSRD) & confidentially of mental health services

Areas of Concern:

  1. Adequacy of school gym
  2. Clinical space (relaxation, study, and storage space)
  3. Debt management counseling
  4. Curriculum
    1. Utility of the pre-clerkship (first/second years) as preparation for clinical clerkships
    2. Quality of curriculum in addressing LGBTQIA in medicine
    3. Adequacy of unscheduled time for self- directed learning
    4. Coordination/integration of content in the pre- clerkship (first/second years)
    5. Quality of the pre- clerkship (first year/second year)
    6. Quality of curriculum in addressing anti-racism in medicine
    7. Adequacy of counseling about elective choices
    8. Adequacy of adaptation of online curriculum in response to COVID-19

Next steps:

  1. We have shared a detailed report along with areas of concern with medical school leadership to help address them
  2. The ISA team plans to have the final report ready by end of March to share with all medical students and school leadership
  3. Lastly, Steven and Ashley (MS3 CEP reps) have started to join our biweekly meeting and will take over Sarah and I once we graduate in June.

Sarah Westcott & Simson Hon
Co-Chairs, Independent Student Analysis