Duke School of Medicine advanced in medical school rankings for research from ninth to eighth, but that does not tell the whole story.
The school rose in the Best Medical School Rankings released by U.S. News and World Report earlier this month. Administrators noted, though, that small differences may not be truly indicative of distinctions in the quality of different institutions. The rankings are determined by factors including the amount of research funding from the National Institutes of Health, faculty-to-student ratio, and the MCAT scores and GPAs of the students.
Though the rankings are not necessarily a complete measure of quality, School of Medicine administrators pay attention to them because they are now popular among the public and potential applicants, said Dr. Victor Dzau, chancellor for health affairs and president and CEO of the Duke University Health System.
“Rankings these days are taken a lot more seriously by the public, so we do care but we don’t live or die by the ranking,” Dzau said. “We try to get as high as we can but it’s not like taking an exam and optimizing every point. Duke is one of the best schools in the country. We always have been—when you say eight or nine or seven, it’s hard to be sure that’s really meaningful.”
The U.S. News rankings do not address all the questions that a prospective medical student should ask, Dr. Nancy Andrews, dean of the School of Medicine, wrote in an email Friday. Such questions include how innovative the curriculum is, how important diversity is at the institution and if graduates do well in the residency match. It would also be important to consider the quality of advising, post-graduation happiness in careers, supportiveness of environment, teaching abilities of professors and student publication frequency, Andrews added.
“It’s fair to say that none of these questions are considered in the rankings,” Andrews said.
Senior Charmaine Mutucumarana is in the process of deciding which medical school to attend based on her acceptances. She is considering Duke, which she said has a “good name,” although she is also thinking about how she will fit in at different schools. Some of her main reasons for considering the School of Medicine are the strong global health and research opportunities.
“Rankings definitely play a role—that’s not the only thing I’m thinking about,” Mutucumarana said.
It is important, though, that the medical school does not handicap itself by ignoring rankings altogether, Dzau noted.
“These days, when everything is so measurement-oriented, people depend on metrics and measures,” Dzau said. “Rankings have some validity and the more funding you have, the more successful you are with research, but it also depends on the size of the school.”
He noted that for large institutions like Harvard Medical School, currently ranked number one, size elevates NIH ranking. Harvard has 8,000 faculty in comparison to Duke’s 2,000.
“Let’s take Harvard in ranking—Harvard can add all its 16 teaching hospitals and its medical school into one single unit,” Dzau said. “To me this is not only a reflection of quality which Harvard does have, but also of size.”
He noted that Duke’s medical school defines itself as a small school and deliberately chooses not to grow considerably larger.
In the past year, the Duke health system has faced challenges including decline in revenue and lower patient numbers.
“The recent onset of government sequestration, if it lasts more than a few weeks, will be devastating to medical schools across the country and to biomedical research,” Andrews said.
Andrews declined to comment extensively on how plans for the future will address these issues.
Dzau noted that he is happy with how his team has dealt with challenges in the past year.
“I’m very proud of my team, the deans,” Dzau said. “They do a great job and they try to do better, especially these days, when the budget is very tight.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.