Will Pass/Fail Pass?

Attempts to correlate performance in medical school with the student's subsequent quality as a clinician have been dismally frustrating. In a comprehensive review of such studies, Wingard and Williamson found no definite relation between physicians' medical-school records and their later quality of clinical care.1 It is therefore especially interesting to learn that not ranking students has a measurable relation to the quality of their performance as residents.Moss et al., writing in this issue of the Journal, reasoned that carefully documented evaluations of house-staff performance might provide a retrospective test of the system of grading used in medical school. . . .