Galen Eminence, MD Dean of Students The Medical School Dear Dr Eminence: The leaves are starting to turn outside, and my computer is filling rapidly with applications from your graduates who want to become anesthesiologists. Of course, I'm grateful for their interest. Like any program director, I stand before 2 sets of decisions. Which of these applicants will I invite to visit our program, and once those interviews are over, how do I fit these multifaceted, talented young physicians into the 1-dimensional hierarchy of our National Residency Matching Program match list? Although the evidence supporting my belief is thin,1 I assume that students' performances in your medical school will predict their success during residency. That sentiment is widespread. Multiple surveys of program directors have shown that programs' decisions to interview applicants are heavily influenced by medical school performance, particularly in the required clinical clerkships.2,3 For that reason, I am particularly interested in reading the summative evaluations in the applicants' Medical Student Performance Evaluations (MSPEs)—their Dean's Letters. Every year, however, I'm puzzled by your and other schools' reluctance to report comparative data about the performance of your students. For example, you wrote: Although the [Association of American Medical Colleges] recommends that the MSPE contain a comparative summative performance statement, [the] School of Medicine's evaluation system was not designed to provide a specific comparative performance ranking of our students. For that reason, we encourage review of this evaluation letter in its entirety.
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