title: High school versus graduate entry in a Saudi medical school - is there any difference in academic performance and professionalism lapses?
abstract: 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.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, King Abdullah Specialized Children's Hospital, College of Medicine, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Ministry of National Guard - Health Affairs, PO Box 3660, Riyadh, 11481, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Ahmed Rumayyan
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Al Rumayyan
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, King Fahad Specialist Hospital - Dammam, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Abdulaziz Ahmed
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Al Zahrani
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, King Abdullah Specialized Children's Hospital, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Ministry of National Guard - Health Affairs, College of Medicine, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, PO Box 22490, Riyadh, 11426, Saudi Arabia. hameedta@ngha.med.sa.
authors.forename: Tahir Kamal
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Hameed
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D003479:Curriculum; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D004521:Educational Measurement; D006801:Humans; D000068616:Professionalism; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012529:Saudi Arabia; D012570:School Admission Criteria / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012577:Schools, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: Educational measurement; Graduate entry medicine; Medical school; Professionalism; School admission criteria