COM – Conflicts of Interest – Academic

Policy Number: 3349-AC-412
Effective Date: 10/13/2015
Updated: 07/11/2023
Reviewed: —
Responsible Department: Office of the Dean and Medical Education, College of Medicine
Approval Authority: Dean, College of Medicine
Responsible Office: Office of the Dean and Medical Education, College of Medicine

A. Purpose

The purpose of this Policy is to establish guidelines regarding conflicts of interest for assessment and promotion of students. This Policy is intended to remove, as much as possible, bias in assessment of a student’s performance, assigning a student’s grade or in decisions of student promotion in accordance with the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). The relevant LCME Elements are as follows (LCME Functions and Structure of a Medical School, effective July 1, 2023):

1. 12.5 Non-Involvement of Providers of Student Health Services in Student Assessment/Location of Student Health Records
2. 9.9 Student Advancement and Appeal Process

B. Scope

This Policy applies to credit-bearing courses in the College of Medicine (COM) curriculum, and to the Committee on Academic and Professional Progress. This policy does not apply to co-curricular activities at any level, student independent study effort or student employment.

C. Definitions

1. Committee on Academic and Professional Progress (CAPP): CAPP evaluates students’ academic performance, assesses professional readiness for continued studies and determines appropriateness of curricular leave. (NEOMED Appendix G, College of Medicine, College of Medicine Standing Committees)
2. Conflict of Interest: The ability of a faculty member to improperly influence a decision about a student due to a preexisting relationship between the faculty member and the student.
3. Course Director: Course Director: The appointed faculty member who is responsible for the overall design, conduct, student assessment within and evaluation of a credit-bearing course.
4. Credit-bearing Course: A course offered by the College of Medicine in which a student is enrolled, the course appears on the student’s official transcript with either contact hours or credit-bearing acknowledgment, and a grade is assigned.
5. Faculty: Faculty is defined as any instructor  responsible for assignment of a course grade or a major component thereof to a student, or a person responsible for contributing to a promotion decision regarding a student.
6. Clinical Site:  Instructional sites not located on the NEOMED campus where students are engaged in curricular experiences of a clinical nature.

D. Policy Statement

1. This Policy applies to credit-bearing courses within the COM curriculum. This policy does not apply to courses in which the principle means of assessment is a multiple-choice examination for which cut lines for grading are predetermined or assigned using a distribution of scores in which individual students are anonymous. This Policy is applicable to Course Directors, those who contribute substantially to a course grade, and those who are members of a Committee on Academic and Professional Progress (CAPP).
2. A Conflict of Interest is deemed to exist when Faculty has a close personal or professional relationship with a student.
   1. A Conflict of Interest is deemed to exist when Faculty are or have been providers of health care including psychiatric or psychological counseling to a student. This Conflict does not apply to Faculty who provide emergent or urgent care to a student in exceptional circumstances and also does not apply to Faculty who provide urgent care to a student with the student’s consent.
   2. In the case of CAPP, a Conflict of Interest exists when a course director has assigned a failing grade to a student in a course to which this policy applies.
3. This Policy is designed to remove, as much as possible, bias in assessment of a student, assigning a grade to a student, or making a promotion decision regarding a student.
   1. The goal is to avoid Conflicts of Interest to the extent possible by not assigning students to Faculty with a Conflict of Interest.
   2. The goal is to avoid Conflicts of Interest to the extent possible by not assigning students to Faculty with a Conflict of Interest.
4. Faculty responsibilities:
   1. Faculty assigned to evaluate medical students or to make decisions regarding the promotion or possible disciplinary action of medical students to whom they have provided psychiatric/psychological counseling or other sensitive health services are obliged to report the Conflict of Interest to the course director prior to the inception of a course or a meeting of CAPP by acknowledging any Conflicts of Interest (Attachment 1), so that the student or Faculty/staff can be reassigned, if feasible to preclude any Conflict of Interest, real, perceived, or potential.
   2. Members of CAPP must recuse themselves from discussions concerning and decisions about students for whom they are the Course Director or have contributed in a substantial way to a Course Grade of fail if the grade was assigned in a manner that was not anonymous.
5. Student responsibilities
   1. Students who have been assigned to a preclinical experience or clinical clerkship rotation in which they would be evaluated by a member of the Faculty or staff who has provided them with psychiatric/psychological counseling or other sensitive medical or health services, should report the real, perceived, or potential Conflict of Interest using the disclosure form (Attachment 2) at the start of an academic year or as soon as they receive the assignment so that there will be no involvement of said Faculty/staff in the academic evaluation or promotion of the student.
      1. Students will be made aware of the need to disclose Conflicts of Interest in orientations and via the NEOMED Compass.
   2. Disclosure of such relationships must be prior to the start of a graded experience.
   3. Should the student fail to disclose the relationship until the graded experience has begun and it is discovered, the Course Director will either move the student to avoid the Conflict or reassign the supervision to minimize its impact. Inability to complete a required experience related to student non-disclosure of a Conflict of Interest may result in failure to meet graduation requirements on time.
   4. Failure to disclose a potential Conflict of Interest prior to the start of a graded experience is a conduct concern that will be reported.

Download the Policy*

Download Attachment 1

Download Attachment 2