COM Student Retention Policy

CHSU-COM is organized with a vision of teaching and inspiring students who will be committed to serving and improving the healthcare outcomes of the underserved population in California’s Central Valley. To make that vision a reality, CHSU COM evaluates applicants and offers admission to well qualified students who are capable of succeeding in the academic program. Thereafter, CHSU-COM takes steps necessary to retain students who demonstrate appropriate academic and professional progress.

Definitions

A. StARC: Student at Risk Committee
B. SPC: Student Progress Committee

Support Programs and Services Available for Students Include:

  1. Educational skills specialists and behavioral health specialists assist students with academic and personal challenges that may result in barriers to success. Routine workshops help provide information, strategies, and coaching for students appropriate for their phase of education.
  2. A student mentor tutoring program is in place to provide peer-to-peer opportunities for improvement.
  3. An individual faculty advisor is assigned to each student upon matriculation. Advisors meet their group of advisees at orientation and follow-up with individual and group meetings for the duration of each student’s time at CHSU-COM.
  4. A faculty member is appointed as Director of Academic Achievement for OMS-I and another for OMS-II to assist with monitoring and guiding students throughout their entire year of the curriculum.
  5. A Career Advisor/Match Manager is in place to mentor students through the application process for ERAS and NRMP.
  6. Individual Match Coaches are assigned from the clinical preceptor faculty for specialty specific advising during match season.
  7. Faculty are expected to be available to provide academic guidance to students enrolled in the courses in which they teach. Such guidance can be provided by written communication through email, by conversation in the learning environment or a video-conference, by formal or informal office hours, or by casual conversation in the normal course of a day.
  8. The COM Student at Risk Committee (StARC) is charged with proactively identifying student doctors who are at risk for course or program failure and offering resources to assist the student doctors in regaining academic success. The StARC utilizes a prescriptive approach which involves individual assessments, academic history, creation of interventions and support strategies tailored to each individual student. The StARC assists in guiding the student to faculty, educational skills specialists, behavioral health specialists, tutors and the academic Success Coaches as needed.
  9. When a student is refereed to the Student Progress Committee (SPC) for academic failure or professionalism concerns, the SPC will be provided with relevant information on what interventions were recommended to the student and the extent to which the student pursued those recommendations.