OBJECTIVE: Computer-based testing (CBT) for the purpose of the national licensure examination has increased interest among medical students in this modality of testing. The advent of Web-based question-delivery systems for self-assessment and learning has made it possible for students to practice this technology and participate in self-directed learning. Test Pilot(TM) ...

OBJECTIVE: The teaching OSCE (objective structured clinical examination) was developed from existing OSCE materials to provide direct observation and feedback to students on their doctor-patient relationship skills, students' abilities to do a focused history and physical examination, and to familiarize students with this type of examination. DESCRIPTION: Existing OSCE cases ...

OBJECTIVE: LCME has recently required that all graduating medical students learn about end-of-life care. This program describes the design and integration into an existing geriatrics clerkship of a palliative care module that teaches the foundations of end-of-life and palliative care to medical students. DESCRIPTION: Faculty experts in geriatrics met during ...

PURPOSE: To determine the effect of the timing of the medicine clerkship on academic performance in different racial-ethnic student groups. METHOD: Performance was measured by the average assessment of clinical preceptors, an OSCE (objective structured clinical examination), and the NBME (National Board of Medical Examiners) medicine subject examination. Outcomes were ...

OBJECTIVE: The potential of distance learning technology to deliver educational programs in which instruction and evaluation are of a consistent and high standard across multiple settings is hampered by a lack of instructional design models. In response, we developed the HEAL (Heuristic for Electronic Asynchronous Learning) model for designing online ...

Experiences of students using optically scanned cards were compared with those of students using personal digital assistants (PDAs) to log patient encounters in a primary care clerkship. From April to September 2001, students were offered the option of using a PDA in lieu of scanned cards to track clinical encounters. ...

BACKGROUND: To improve student skills specific to the evaluation of radiology studies during a required clerkship in surgery for 4th-year medical students, we initiated a self-study CD-ROM educational module midway through 2000-2001. We hypothesized that student performance would improve after implementation of this module and identified factors that predicted student ...

PURPOSE: Combining complementary clinical content into an integrated clerkship curriculum should enhance students' abilities to develop skills relevant to multiple disciplines, but how educational opportunities in primary care ambulatory settings complement each other is unknown. The authors conducted an observational analytic study to explore where opportunities exist to apply clinical ...

Documentation systems are used by medical schools and residency programs to record the clinical experiences of their learners. The authors developed a system for their school's (Dartmouth's) multidisciplinary primary care clerkship (family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics) that documents students' clinical and educational experiences and provides feedback designed to enhance clinical ...

PURPOSE: The purpose was to evaluate the use of Web-based library resources by third-year medical students. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS/RESOURCES: Third-year medical students (147) in a twelve-week multidisciplinary primary care rotation in community and ambulatory settings. METHODOLOGY: Individual user surveys and log file analysis of Website were used. RESULTS/OUTCOMES: Twenty resource topics were ...

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: The authors performed this study to develop, implement, and evaluate a new radiology clerkship for the required clinical clerkship year of medical school. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A mandatory radiology clerkship experience was added to the required clinical clerkships as a series of 10 independent half-day teaching sessions. ...

BACKGROUND: Although self-assessment is an essential component of self-directed adult learning, few data exist regarding the ability of medical students to perform this important task. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of medical students to perform self-assessment during a third-year surgery clerkship. METHODS: Sixty-eight (34 ...

OBJECTIVE: To provide a consensus opinion on modifying the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Medicine Subject Exam (Shelf) to: 1) reflect the internal medicine clerkship curriculum, developed by the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) and the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine (CDIM); 2) emphasize knowledge important for a ...

PURPOSE: To examine the immediate and delayed impact of an intensive one- or two-day interclerkship on substance abuse (SA) for third-year medical students. The program is a response to the problem of inadequacy of substance abuse education in the standard curriculum. METHOD: Each year since 1997-98 all third-year students at ...

PURPOSE: To determine the prognosis of failing a clerkship final examination. METHOD: From 1994-99, 48 students at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (6%) failed the end-of-clerkship National Board of Medical Examiners' (NBME) subject exam, but otherwise had acceptable medicine clerkship performances. All of these students were retested ...

BACKGROUND: Student satisfaction with the feedback process is essential for motivating students to improve their performance. METHODS: Third-year medical students participated in a system to increase feedback from faculty, fellows, and residents during a 12-week surgery clerkship. Each student received 40 encounter cards to solicit verbal and written feedback on ...

Many US medical schools require a family medicine clerkship, yet little is known about the quantity and diversity of the diagnoses the students experience. This study examines patients encountered with musculoskeletal diagnoses using quantitative data collected by family practice clerkship students. Over a two-year period, 445 students completed 7,202 patient ...

PURPOSE: To describe the epidemiology of occupational exposures sustained by third-year medical students at a state university medical school, and identify associated factors that may be modified to decrease exposure risk. METHOD: The cohort consisted of all third-year students after completion of each third-year clerkship rotation. At the end of ...

Due to the rapid growth in the proportion of U.S. citizens aged 65 and older (20% by 2030) it is imperative that U.S. medical schools train students who can provide quality care to the older population. Consequently, the objective of this paper is to report the experience of creating a ...

PURPOSE: A written test of clinical decision-making, the Key Features Examination, was developed for use in clerkship. METHODS: Following the guidelines provided by the Medical Council of Canada, a Key Features Examination was developed and implemented in an internal medicine clinical clerkship, during the 1998/99 clerkship year. The reliability and ...

BACKGROUND: A systematized approach to descriptive evaluation of clinical performance using a vocabulary of global descriptors in the setting of formal evaluation and feedback sessions has been shown to be reliable and valid. The feasibility of this method beyond the institution at which it was developed has not been studied. ...

BACKGROUND: For years, quantifiable examinations have been a core component of assessing medical student competence during the internal medicine clerkship. PURPOSE: To determine how internal medicine clerkship directors use and view examinations and how uses of examinations have changed. METHODS: In 1999, the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine conducted a ...

The range of writing tasks undertaken by students during doctor of pharmacy clerkship rotations was studied. Data collection involved a review between August and November 1998 of writing samples selected by postbaccalaureate Pharm. D. students at Albany College of Pharmacy for inclusion in their required writing portfolios. The first 200 ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The objective of this study was to investigate whether a gender difference exists in student performance on any component of the grading scheme in an obstetrics and gynecology clerkship. METHODS: Evaluation of medical students' performance in the obstetrics and gynecology clerkship at our institution includes an Objective ...

An innovative ambulatory experience was added to the third-year psychiatry clerkship at the University of Michigan in July 1998. The new program was developed to increase ambulatory time to one day per week and to enhance the educational experience. Students actively participated in evaluation of new patients, conducted group interviews ...

BACKGROUND: Although students develop experience in integrating clinical and basic scientific knowledge, it may be difficult for them to do so in patient management. Formalized instructions using case discussions that involve the integration of basic science concepts may facilitate their incorporation into practice. METHODS: Third-year surgical clerkship students were pretested ...

BACKGROUND: Problem-based learning (PBL) is being incorporated into more medical curricula, but its influence on subsequent clinical performance remains unclear. PURPOSE: To determine if PBL leads to better scores for fund of knowledge or clinical problem-solving skills in required clerkships taken early in the 3rd year at Penn State College ...

BACKGROUND: The abuse of medical students on clinical rotations is a recognized problem, but the effects on students and their responses warrant further study. PURPOSE: To determine the severity of student abuse and the effects of abuse on students during the internal medicine clerkship. METHODS: Internal medicine clerks at 11 ...

BACKGROUND: The direct observation of students in authentic settings by faculty provides valuable feedback on performance and helps ensure mastery of clinical skills. DESCRIPTION: We explored the use of interactive video technology (IVT) as a way of involving community preceptors as raters on a clinical performance exam for 3rd-year students ...

BACKGROUND: There are limited data on the amount of time students spend on teaching and learning while on internal medicine clerkships, and existing data suggest a wide international variation. Community-based teaching of internal medicine is now widespread; but its strengths and weaknesses compared to traditional hospital based teaching are still ...

This article describes the experience of the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine during the past 5 years in using Internet technology to communicate with osteopathic medical students on remote, community-based clinical rotations. Federal funding initially supported creation of a new Internet-based system to connect students on their rural family ...

BACKGROUND: Most of the published documents proposing teaching objectives for undergraduate clerkships were prepared by expert bodies. Seldom have the clinical teachers, who are critical to the learning process and to the implementation of the teaching objectives, been the actual proponents of its core content. OBJECTIVE: To develop a national-scale ...

To assess the educational quality of a traditional clerkship, a questionnaire was administered to 28 students at the end of their 10-week surgical clerkship. The questionnaire contained 116 items on learning objectives, patient problems encountered by students, clinical skills performed, feedback received and amounts of time spent on various activities. ...

This study examined the predictive validity of in-clerkship evaluation methods to identify medical students who have insufficient knowledge. Study subjects were 124 third-year medical students at the Uniformed Services University. Insufficient knowledge was defined by: (1) a clerkship 'pre-test' score one standard deviation below the mean or lower; or (2) ...

CONTEXT: The decentralization of clinical teaching networks over the past decade calls for a systematic way to record the case-mix of patients, the severity of diseases, and the diagnostic procedures that medical students encounter in clinical clerkships. OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate a system that documents medical students' clinical experiences across clerkships. ...

PURPOSE: We report an observational study of medical students' abilities in taking a complex history for which sleep disorders is one of several possible conditions. METHODS: Students are observed taking a focused history from a simulated patient whose chief complaint is "I am tired. I cannot get anything done." Nine ...

This study was conducted to identify the range and nature of surgical clerkship experiences in three different hospital settings-university, community, and public. METHODS: An instrument was developed to track the location and type of learning experience, patient demographics, surgical content, and clinical experience of students on their surgical clerkship. Twenty-three ...

Many medical schools use patient-encounter log forms to document and improve training experiences; however, they are expensive and/or time-consuming to analyze. The patient-encounter log form developed at the University of Hawaii is a one-page form on which students in the family medicine clerkship are required to maintain a daily record ...

PURPOSE: To characterize the responsibilities, activities, and scholarly productivity of internal medicine clerkship directors (CDs). METHODS: In 1999, internal medicine CDs from 122 U.S. medical schools and one Canadian medical school were surveyed. The instrument asked about the CDs' demo-graphics, workloads, clerkship characteristics, and scholarly productivity. RESULTS: The response rate ...

Problem-based learning (PBL) is used all over the world and is recognised as a modern and efficient way of teaching medicine. In most medical schools, these techniques are applied during the pre-clinical phase of the curriculum. We report here our experience with PBL during clerkship rotations. These sessions, called Clinical ...

OBJECTIVE: Acquisition of clinical skills, after completing a course in the basic sciences, is an essential aspect of undergraduate training in any medical school. These skills are usually divided into 3 broad categories: namely, history taking, physical examination and selection of the appropriate laboratory investigations. At the end of the ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Little is known about the relationship between the length of a family medicine clerkship and its educational outcomes. After our family medicine clerkship time decreased from 6 weeks to 4 weeks in July 1997, we studied how this change in clerkship length affected educational outcomes. METHODS: Educational ...

The primary care clerkship (PCC) at Harvard Medical School was established in 1997. The goals are to provide students with longitudinal experiences with patients and to include modern themes in the curriculum: managing illness and clinical relationships over time; finding the best available answers to clinical questions; preventing illness and ...

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of changing from lectures to a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum on student knowledge accrual and satisfaction with the didactic portion of a clerkship. DESIGN: Study of cohorts before and after PBL introduction and in comparison with unchanged medicine clerkship. SETTING: Third-year pediatric clerkship at 5 ...

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has emerged has a critical clinical competency in the 21st century. Medical schools usually introduce students to critical appraisal in the preclinical years, but there have been few evaluated interventions in teaching EBM in the clinical years. We describe a strategy to encourage students to practice EBM ...

BACKGROUND: A study was undertaken to determine the amount, methods, and adequacy of instruction in clinical preventive medicine topics in the medical school curriculum at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in the 1996-1997 academic year. METHODS: A protocol of 35 clinical preventive medicine topics was developed. The preclinical ...

It is necessary to average multiple clinical evaluation form (CEF) observations to obtain a reliable score. Combining CEF observations across clerkships will provide more observations per student, but it is unknown how an across-clerkship generalization affects reliability. The authors conducted generalizability studies on balanced stratified random samples to examine the ...

The purpose of this study was to specify how student attitudes toward different types of patients and the profession change during clinical rotations. A questionnaire was given to all medical students prior to 3rd-year rotations regarding their attitudes toward the medical profession and patient types. It was given again after ...

BACKGROUND: This study was developed to assess study habits of medical students in a third-year surgical clerkship and to determine the relationship of these study habits to performance outcomes. METHODS: A questionnaire designed to assess medical student study habits was administered at the end of five consecutive 10-week multidisciplinary surgical ...

As part of a recent trend among faculties in educational institutions to review and upgrade their courses and teaching methods, the Department of Pathology introduced a questionnaire for assessment of the pathology clerkship experience by the medical students. This was to be completed at the end of their rotation. An ...