The Duke School of Medicine will no longer participate in the U.S. News and World Report’s Best Medical Schools ranking.
Mary E. Klotman, dean of the School of Medicine, and Edward Buckley, vice dean for education of the School of Medicine, announced the decision to faculty, staff and students in a Friday release. Their statement cited concerns with the “value and validity of the rankings.”
“The rankings convey nothing about the scientific creativity, the intellectual rigor, the culture of collaboration, the spirit of service, and the commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion that characterize the School of Medicine community,” wrote Klotman and Buckley. “The rankings evaluate research by the amount of federal funding an institution receives; we, however, evaluate research not only by its federal support but by its innovation, its impact, and its effectiveness in training the next generation of physician-scientists.”
Duke was ranked sixth in the 2023 US News rankings for best medical schools for research, released last spring, third in the 2022 rankings and 12th in the 2021 rankings.
Several other top schools have withdrawn from the U.S. News’ rankings within the last weeks. Harvard School of Medicine was the first to announce its decision to withdraw on Jan. 17, followed by the medical schools at Stanford, University of Pennsylvania and Columbia.
This decision also comes after Duke School of Law withdrew from the rankings in November, with Dean Kerry Abrams citing similar concerns about the ranking’s methodologies and purpose.
The School of Medicine’s decision only applies to the U.S. News medicine school rankings, per the release. It does not affect rankings for Duke University Hospital, the School of Nursing, or specific degree programs, such as the Physician Assistant program, that U.S. News ranks separately and under different criteria.
U.S. News and World Report will continue to produce rankings each year of every accredited medical school, regardless of whether they submit data. If a school chooses not to submit data, its ranking will be based on publicly available data.
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Milla Surjadi is a Trinity junior and a diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator of The Chronicle's 119th volume. She was previously editor-in-chief for Volume 118.
Katie Tan is a Trinity senior and digital strategy director of The Chronicle's 119th volume. She was previously managing editor for Volume 118.