Document Detail


Should non-expert clinician examiners be used in objective structured assessment of communication skills among final year medical undergraduates?
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  18158667     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
BACKGROUND: Adoption of the objective structured clinical examination may be hindered by shortages of clinicians within a specialty. Clinicians from other specialties should be considered as alternative, non-expert examiners. AIMS: We assessed the inter-rater agreement between expert and non-expert clinician examiners in an integrated objective structured clinical examination for final year medical undergraduates. METHODS: Pairs of expert and non-expert clinician examiners used a rating checklist to assess students in 8 oral communication stations, representing commonly encountered scenarios from medicine, paediatrics, and surgery. These included breaking bad news, managing an angry relative, taking consent for lumbar puncture; and advising a mother on asthma and febrile fits, and an adult on medication use, lifestyle changes and post-suture care of a wound. 439 students participated in the OSCE (206 in 2005, 233 in 2006). Results: There was good to very good agreement (intraclass coefficient: 0.57-0.79) between expert and non-expert clinician examiners, with 5 out of 8 stations having intraclass coefficients > or =0.70. Variation between paired examiners within stations contributed the lowest variance to student scores. CONCLUSION: These findings support the use of clinicians from other specialties, as 'non-expert' examiners, to assess communication skills, using a standardized checklist, thereby reducing the demand on clinicians' time.
Authors:
Mee Lian Wong; Calvin S L Fones; Marion Aw; Chay Hoon Tan; Poh Sim Low; Zubair Amin; Poo Sing Wong; Poh Sun Goh; Chun-Tao Wai; Benjamin Ong; Paul Tambyah; Dow Rhoon Koh
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Medical teacher     Volume:  29     ISSN:  1466-187X     ISO Abbreviation:  Med Teach     Publication Date:  2007 Nov 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2007-12-25     Completed Date:  2008-02-11     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  7909593     Medline TA:  Med Teach     Country:  England    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  927-32     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Community, Occupational and Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. cofwml@.nus.edu.sg
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Clinical Competence / standards*
Communication
Education, Medical, Undergraduate / standards*
Educational Measurement / methods*,  standards
Faculty, Medical / standards,  supply & distribution
Humans
Observer Variation
Pilot Projects
Reproducibility of Results

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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