Dean Melina Kibbe, MD
I would like to take this opportunity to clarify an article that was published in the Richmond-Times Dispatch on July 11, 2022, and subsequently picked up by other media, regarding our UVA School of Medicine Primary Care ranking. The reporter stated that the UVA School of Medicine was unlisted from last year’s U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) ranking for Primary Care “for reporting wrong information.” To clarify what occurred, under new School of Medicine leadership a clerical mistake regarding the entry of one data point used to calculate the School of Medicine Primary Care ranking was discovered last fall. The data point was mistakenly entered as an absolute number instead of a percentile. As soon as the error was discovered, we immediately and voluntarily reported to the error to the USNWR. USNWR moves any school’s ranking with a data discrepancy to the “unranked” category and the status lasts until the publication of the next rankings. The new USNWR rankings were released in March 2022. The UVA School of Medicine is ranked #30 for Best School of Medicine in Research and #35 for Best School of Medicine in Primary Care, securing our place among the top medical schools in the nation.
The title and focus of the article were unfortunately misleading given that the article references old data entered over a year and a half ago. When we detected this clerical error we immediately reported the correction. UVA was among 50 different institutions that submitted corrections last year. With our new leadership team, we have already put processes in place to ensure a high level of rigor with respect to all externally reported data.
Thank you, as always, for your support of the UVA School of Medicine.
Filed Under: Dean's Message