Strange disparities in medical training.

(Dan Tri Newspaper) - In the field of medical training, there is a strange disparity in the percentage of excellent and outstanding students. The lower the entrance score, the higher the percentage of students graduating with honors and outstanding grades, and vice versa.

At many universities, it's not uncommon for 70-90% of graduates to achieve excellent or outstanding grades. Amidst this trend, there are significant disparities between universities, particularly among medical schools.

In medical training, a paradox emerges: the higher the entrance exam scores, the fewer high-achieving graduates there are. Conversely, many institutions with low entrance scores tend to have a higher percentage of high-achieving graduates.

Students of Hanoi Medical University at their 2025 graduation ceremony (Photo: HMU).

Specifically, Hanoi Medical University is one of the largest medical training institutions in the country, attracting many talented students with top-tier entrance scores in the medical field. However, none of the 722 new medical doctors graduating at the end of 2024 from the university graduated with distinction.

Only 11.3% of medical students in the entire school graduated with honors, nearly 70% graduated with good grades; the rest graduated with average or above-average grades.

Previously, in the 2023 graduating class – the class with the highest entrance exam cutoff score at Hanoi Medical University with 29.25 points – not to mention excellent, a number of majors such as nursing, public health , and ophthalmic refraction did not have any graduates with honors.

Some fields have only one or two graduates with excellent grades, such as traditional medicine, preventive medicine, medical laboratory science, and nutrition.

Recently, the Faculty of Medicine, Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy, awarded diplomas to 388 new medical doctors for the 2019-2025 academic year, with a graduation rate of 97.92%. Of these, only 2 students graduated with distinction (0.55%), while 18.28% graduated with honors.

In the 2024 graduation ceremony of 366 new doctors from this Faculty of Medicine, only 3 students achieved excellent grades (accounting for 0.84%), while the percentage of students graduating with honors was 18.77%.

Similarly, the number of outstanding and excellent graduates at Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine is small compared to the total number of graduates.

In the graduation ceremony at the end of 2024, which awarded degrees to 1,254 new doctors, pharmacists, and bachelors from this school, only one student graduated with distinction, while 68 students achieved good grades.

Out of more than a thousand students graduating at the end of 2024 from Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine, only one student achieved an excellent grade (Photo: NT).

In the graduation ceremony held in early 2024 by the Faculty of Medicine (now the University of Health Sciences , Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City), out of 132 graduating students, none achieved excellent grades, and only over 6% graduated with good grades. Of the 187 students who graduated from both Medicine and Pharmacy programs at this institution, only 10.7% graduated with good grades.

It is evident that at most long-established medical schools with high entrance exam scores, very few, if any, students graduate with excellent or good grades.

Low input, sky-high output...

This is in stark contrast to the picture at many newly established private medical schools: low entrance scores but an abundance of graduates with excellent or good grades.

Every year, the entrance exam scores for medical programs at many universities are only slightly higher than or equal to the minimum score required by the Ministry of Education and Training, but upon graduation, the percentage of students achieving excellent and outstanding grades is very high.

For example, at Duy Tan University, according to the publicly available report for the 2023-2024 academic year, the percentage of students graduating with excellent grades in Group VI (including Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, and Dentistry) was 5.08%, with good grades was 21.95%, and with fair grades was 62.69%.

In the graduation ceremony for the Dentistry program at Duy Tan University's School of Medicine and Pharmacy at the end of 2024, 14 students achieved excellent grades (23%) and 37 students achieved good grades (62%) out of a total of 60 graduating students. Only 9 students graduating from the Dentistry program at this university received grades below good.

These are the students admitted in 2018 with a cutoff score of only 19.

At the mid-year 2024 graduation ceremony of Hong Bang International University, with over 1,500 doctors, pharmacists, engineers, architects, and bachelors graduating, the percentage of students graduating with a grade of "good" or higher reached 93%, of which nearly 40% achieved "excellent" or "outstanding".

Of the 391 new doctors and pharmacists who graduated from this school, 80 were recognized with excellent and good grades.

The proportion of graduates with honors and distinctions varies greatly among medical schools (Illustrative image: Hoai Nam).

According to 2024 data from Dai Nam University, Group VI had 433 graduating students, including 1 student with excellent grades; 40 students with good grades, and 188 students with fair grades.

Explaining the scarcity of excellent and outstanding students at top medical schools, the leader of a public university stated that currently, the long-established top medical schools are among the few that are "immune" to the inflation of excellent and outstanding degrees.

This stems from the fact that it is very difficult for medical students to achieve excellent results. Assessment at these schools focuses more on practical skills than on grades.

Furthermore, the assessment requires many factors, including not only knowledge but also a range of practical skills, professionalism, attitude, and professional competence, making it difficult for students to achieve the maximum score.

Furthermore, these schools specialize in particular fields and don't face competition, so they remain relatively unfazed by a market dominated by graduates with excellent or outstanding academic records. Even if their students don't receive top honors or excellent degrees, upon graduation they are still highly regarded by society for their competence and professional skills.

Regarding medical schools with lower entry requirements but significantly higher graduation rates, this person believes it's "not surprising," given the current trend of an increasing number of highly skilled and outstanding graduates.

It's possible that the teaching methods at the school help develop students' abilities; the school's assessment and evaluation methods create conditions for students to achieve good results. And it's also possible that the school is lenient in grading, wanting students to have a good degree upon graduation, building the school's brand...

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/chenh-lech-ky-la-trong-dao-tao-y-khoa-20251001152332489.htm