High school versus graduate entry in a Saudi medical school – is there any difference in academic performance and professionalism lapses?

BACKGROUND: King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS) was the first university in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia offering both high school entry and graduate entry (GE) students into medical school. We compared the academic performance and professionalism lapses of high school entry and GE students who undertook the same curriculum and examinations in the College of Medicine, Riyadh, KSAU-HS. METHODS: Examination scores of 196 high school graduates and 54 GE students over a 4-year period (2010–2014) were used as a measure of academic achievement. For assessment of professionalism lapses, we compared the number of warning letters in both streams of students. RESULTS: In some pre-clinical courses, high school entry students performed significantly better than GE students. There was no significant difference in academic performance of high school entry and GE students in clinical rotations. GE students had a significantly greater number of warning letters per student as compared to high school entry students. DISCUSSION: This is the first Saudi study to compare the performance of high school entry and GE students in a medical school. Overall, both streams of students performed equally well with high school entry students performing better than GE students in a few pre-clinical courses. We compared professionalism lapses and found an increase in number of warning letters for GE students. More studies are needed to evaluate if there are differences in other assessments of professionalism between these two streams of students.