Student Life Policies

Fundraising Guidance for Student Groups

Student Funding Request Policy

Academic Uses of Evaluation Data Policy

Ongoing evaluation of our educational program is essential at Geisel School of Medicine (Geisel). We use course evaluations, student evaluations, and faculty evaluations to continuously improve our educational programs. Sometimes our evaluation findings contribute important generalizable knowledge in medical education through manuscripts for publication or presentation at regional, national or international meetings. As a medical student or faculty member at Geisel School of Medicine, you should know that data from anonymous evaluations you complete or that are completed about you may be included, in aggregate form only, in such papers or presentations. The purpose of this policy is to notify students and faculty of the possibility of this occurrence and to identify sources of additional information regarding this policy.

Standard Programs and Evaluations

Our educational program includes the four-year curriculum leading to an MD degree, which has been approved by the Medical Education Committee. We collect information on a regular basis that includes course evaluations to assess satisfaction with the program; evaluations completed by faculty about students’ clinical skill development; and knowledge and clinical performance exams, which are paper-based, clinical or computer simulations designed to evaluate learning or improve a course. Additionally, a course director may introduce evaluation tools on an occasional basis to elicit specific information to discover how to enhance student learning or improve a course.

All internally or externally funded special medical education programs that are reviewed and approved by our Medical Education Committee, which can include significant program enhancements and their associated evaluations, are considered standard programs/evaluation.

Non-Standard Programs and Evaluations / “Studies” Including Students

Any special medical education programs or evaluations (internally or externally funded) being conducted to test a hypothesis using a scientific study design that is not needed for the purposes of course improvement (e.g. when randomization occurs, or where multiple school comparisons are to be made) or for purposes other than internal program improvement are considered non-standard programs/evaluations. Requests to introduce non-standard programs/evaluations must be reviewed by the Medical Education Institutional Review Committee (MEIRC) for methodological rigor and to assure the appropriateness for participation by Geisel students and/or faculty. In any case when such programs are proposed to and approved by the MEIRC, medical students and faculty will be invited formally to participate, and informed consent will be requested. Decisions to take part in any such program or evaluation will be entirely voluntary and will not influence grades in any course, clerkship or elective or student or faculty standing at Geisel School of Medicine. MEIRC collaborates and coordinates with the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects at Dartmouth College.

Any student considering research on students/ others is required to work with a faculty investigator. Research involving medical student researchers who are studying other medical students have the same requirement of review by the MEIRC through the CPHS at Dartmouth College. Medical students are considered a vulnerable population.

For questions please contact the Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education in Undergraduate Medical Education Affairs.

Guidelines on Targeted and Restricted Programs 

Programs, activities, facilities, and organizations that fall under the responsibility of the Office of Student Affairs and DICE are open to and accessible by all students, regardless of their sex, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or nationality.

Nothing in these guidelines prevents appropriate individual employees from meeting on an ad hoc basis in private settings with individual students or with groups of individual students. Also, nothing in these guidelines prevents students from meeting on their own, in their own spaces and through their own activities, with whomever they wish. Rather, these guidelines simply remind us that as a matter of policy and principle, access to our regular programs, organizations, and facilities is available to all qualified students regardless of their sex, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or nationality.