PURPOSE
Medical school remediation occurs throughout the medical curriculum, but
best practices are rarely shared. At LECOM, if a student receives a failing
grade in a course, system, or clinical rotation, that student will be
reviewed by the Student Promotion and Graduation Committee, and procedures
for remediation will be recommended to the appropriate Dean. Typically,
students that score between 65-69% in one course are permitted to take a remedial
examination. Students with multiple failures may be required to remediate, to
repeat the year or may be dismissed. This study aimed to determine the
usefulness of remediation in student success in the future curriculum and
board examinations.
METHODS
We completed a retrospective analysis using remediation data from LECOM
students who began OMS1 from 2020-2022 to determine the success of students
after remediation. There were a total of 1,398 students during this time and
a total of 207 students remediated. To better understand the success of the
LECOM remediation process, we identified the number of classes remediated,
which, if any, board exams were passed or failed, the number of attempts on
the board exams and if the students repeated a year, withdrew from school, or
were dismissed after remediation.
RESULTS
Overall, 85% of students successfully remediated and progressed to the
following year. Interestingly, 34% of students who remediated in their first
year never had to remediate a course again. Of the remediating students,
82.6% successfully remediated coursework and passed COMLEX Level 1 on their
first attempt.
CONCLUSION
While remediation is time intensive for students and faculty alike, at
LECOM it is successful in helping students overcome academic challenges and
progress to graduation from medical school. LECOM’s remediation process is
highly successful and therefore worth the time and resource investment. ?