SA-4101 Technical Standards for Matriculation, Promotion, and Graduation

1.0      Purpose

The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine (VTCSOM) is dedicated to providing an exceptional medical education via an innovative curriculum.  Candidates for the degree of Doctor of Medicine must possess essential observation, communication, motor, intellectual, and behavioral skills, as well as meeting ethical, legal, and professional standards to complete the educational program. Graduates of VTCSOM must have the knowledge and skills to function in a wide variety of clinical situations.

2.0      Policy

VTCSOM has a responsibility to society to graduate the best possible future physicians. The essential standards (academic and technical) are designed to ensure the graduation of capable, well-rounded future physicians. All graduates must have knowledge, skills, and attitudes to function in a wide variety of clinical situations and to render a broad spectrum of patient care.

All applicants to VTCSOM are considered without regard to disability but with the expectation that they can complete all portions of the curriculum. Some disabilities in several of these areas may be overcome technologically, but candidates for the medical degree must be able to perform with reasonable independence without the use of trained intermediaries. Medical schools are required by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) to prepare students to enter any field of graduate medical education. VTCSOM's academic and technical standards support that requirement, and all candidates must meet both to matriculate, progress through the curriculum, and meet the requirements for graduation. The standards ensure graduates of VTCSOM possess the background to pursue a clinical medicine specialty.

3.0      Procedures

Academic Standards

These refer to acceptable demonstrations of mastery in various disciplines before matriculation and after, as judged by faculty members, examinations, and performance measurements. Once a candidate matriculates, acceptable levels of mastery are required in seven broad areas of competency. These general areas of competency are similar to those used in graduate medical education programs to evaluate resident physicians. Through its curriculum, VTCSOM will prepare its students for the next phase of their education. These areas of competency are:

• Practice-Based Learning and Improvement
• Patient Care and Procedural Skills
• Systems-Based Practice
• Medical Knowledge
• Interpersonal and Communication Skills
• Professionalism

Academic standards are addressed in more detail in a separate policy (Policy No. XXXX: Academic Requirements for Competitive Applicants to VTCSOM).

Technical Standards

The LCME requires technical standards for the admission, retention, and graduation of all applicants and students, including students with disabilities, in accordance with legal standards. Technical Standards are the essential aptitudes and abilities that allow medical students (and physicians) to perform in the vast array of requisite ways summarized by the seven areas of competency above. All candidates will have received notice of the technical standards expected of students for the degree of Doctor of Medicine and will sign a statement that they understand the standards and believe they will be able to meet those standards during their medical school training at VTCSOM, with or without accommodation. VTCSOM actively collaborates with students to develop innovative ways to ensure accessibility and create a respectful and accountable culture through our confidential disability support.  We encourage students with disabilities to disclose and seek accommodations.

Meeting the technical standards (detailed below) is required for the following:

• Matriculation (inasmuch as the abilities can reasonably be determined before matriculation)
• Subsequent promotion from year to year
• Graduation

Observation

Medical students should be able to obtain information from demonstrations and experiences in the classroom-based work (e.g., basic, clinical, and health systems sciences, and research/inquiry).  Students should be able to assess a patient and evaluate findings accurately.  These skills require the use of vision, hearing, and touch (or the functional equivalent).

Communication

Medical students should be able to communicate with patients to elicit information, detect changes in mood and activity, and establish a therapeutic relationship. Students should be able to communicate via English effectively and sensitively with patients and all the members of the healthcare team, both in person and in writing. Medical students must possess communication and interpersonal skills to interact positively with people from all levels of society, ethnic backgrounds, and beliefs. In a case where an individual’s ability to communicate is compromised, one must demonstrate alternative means and/or abilities to communicate with patients and members of the healthcare teams.

Motor

Medical students should possess the capacity to perform a physical examination and perform diagnostic maneuvers. Students should be able to execute some motor movements required to provide general care to patients and provide or direct the provision of emergency treatment of patients. Such actions require some coordination of both gross and fine muscular movements, balance, and equilibrium. If a student is unable to independently perform these activities, they must be able to understand and direct the methodology involved in such activities.

Intellectual - Conceptual, integrative, and quantitative abilities

Medical students should be able to assimilate detailed and complex information presented in both didactic and clinical coursework, and engage in reasoning and problem solving. Candidates are expected to possess the ability to measure, calculate, reason, analyze, synthesize, and transmit information. In addition, students should be able to comprehend three dimensional relationships, understand the spatial relationships of structures, and adapt to different learning environments and modalities.

Behavioral and Social Attributes

Medical students should possess the emotional health required for full utilization of their intellectual abilities, exercise good judgment, and attend to the responsibilities necessary for the care of the patients and the development of mature, sensitive, and effective relationships with patients, their family members, staff, and colleagues. Students should be able to tolerate physically taxing workloads and to function effectively under stress. They should be able to adapt to changing environments, display flexibility, and learn to function in the face of uncertainties inherent in the clinical problems of many patients. Compassion, integrity, concern for others, interpersonal skills, professionalism, interest, and motivation are all personal qualities that are expected during the education process.  Students must be able to contribute to collaborative, constructive learning environments, accept formative feedback from others, and take personal responsibility for making appropriate positive changes.

Ethical and Legal Standards

Medical students should maintain and display ethical behaviors commensurate with the role of a physician in all interactions with patients, faculty, staff, students, and the public. Students are expected to understand the legal and ethical aspects of the practice of medicine and function within the law and ethical standards of the medical profession.

Candidates must meet the legal standards to be licensed to practice medicine in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As such, candidates for admission must acknowledge and provide a written explanation of any felony offense or disciplinary action taken against them prior to matriculation in VTCSOM. Any student convicted of any felony offense while in medical school agrees to immediately notify the Associate Dean for Student Affairs as to the nature of the conviction. Failure to disclose prior or new offenses can lead to disciplinary action by VTCSOM that may include dismissal.

Student Responsibility

The technical standards delineated above must be met with or without accommodation. Students at VTCSOM are required to sign a document upon matriculation, and again annually, stating they are able to meet these standards, with or without accommodation. Students who, after review of the technical standards, determine that they require reasonable accommodation to fully engage in the program should contact Virginia Tech Services for Students with Disability (SSD) office (ssd@vt.edu) to confidentially discuss their accommodation needs. While medical students can disclose a disability and request an accommodation at any time during their enrollment, students are encouraged to disclose the need for accommodation(s) as soon as possible. Given the clinical nature of the VTCSOM programs, time may be needed to create and implement the accommodations. Accommodations are not retroactive; therefore, timely requests are essential and encouraged.

Students with Disabilities

Individuals with disabilities (as defined by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act) may be qualified to study and practice medicine with the use of reasonable accommodations. To be qualified for the study of medicine, those candidates must be able to meet the VTCSOM technical standards for medical school matriculation, promotion, and graduation, with or without reasonable accommodation.

Accommodation is viewed as a means of assisting students with disabilities to meet essential standards by providing them with an equal opportunity to participate in all aspects of the curriculum. Reasonable accommodation is not intended to guarantee that students will be successful in meeting the requirements of the curriculum.

When requested, qualified candidates with documented disabilities are provided with reasonable accommodations, which may include the involvement of an intermediary or an auxiliary aid. No disability, however, can be reasonably accommodated with an aid or intermediary that provides cognitive support, substitutes for essential clinical skills, or supplements clinical and ethical judgment. Thus, accommodations cannot eliminate essential program elements or fundamentally alter the medical school curriculum.

4.0   References

• Virginia Tech Services for Students with Disability (SSD) office
• Academic Requirements for Competitive Applicants to VTCSOM
• Recommendations of the AAMC Special Advisory Panel on Technical Standards for Medical School Admission (Memorandum #79-4), approved by the AAMC Executive Council on January 18, 1979.
• Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, including changes made by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (PL 110-325)
• Section 504 of the Rehabilitative Act of 1973 (PL 93-112)
• Associate Dean for Student Affairs

5.0      Approval and Revisions

• Approved by the Medical Curriculum Committee on December 18, 2025
• Reviewed by VT Legal Counsel on February 10, 2026