Effects of basic clinical skills training on objective structured clinical examination performance

Abstract

OBJECTIVES The aim of curriculum reform in medical education is to improve students' clinical and communication skills. However, there are contradicting results regarding the effectiveness of such reforms.METHODS A study of internal medicine students was carried out using a static group design. The experimental group consisted of 77 students participating in 7 sessions of communication training, 7 sessions of skills-laboratory training and 7 sessions of bedsideteaching, each lasting 1.5 hours. The control group of 66 students from the traditional curriculum participated in equally as many sessions but was offered only bedside teaching. Students' cognitive and practical skills performance was assessed using Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) testing and an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE), delivered by examiners blind to group membership. RESULTS The experimental group performed significantly better on the OSCE than did the control group (P < 0.01), whereas the groups did not differ on the MCQ test (P < 0.15). This indicates that specific training in communication and basic clinical skills enabled students to perform better in an OSCE, whereas its effects on knowledge did not differ from those of the traditional curriculum.CONCLUSION Curriculum reform promoting communication and basic clinical skills are effective and lead to an improved performance in history taking and physical examination skills.

Readdressing the Need for Consensus in Preclinical Education

“…Studies have shown that SPs can give summative and formative assessments in addition to teaching basic clinical skills. 5,9,[12][13][14] However, given the variability of reported assessments used in ICM courses demonstrated in our survey, the use of the SP as an effective evaluator for both formative and summative assessment needs to undergo further critical appraisal. Given that a large percentage of respondents to the 2005 CDIM survey indicated already using SPs for formative and/or summative evaluations, we believe this area of research should receive a high priority.…”

Kompetenzbasierter Lernzielkatalog »Ärztliche Gesprächsführung«

“…Kommunikative Fertigkeiten in der Aus-und Weiterbildung (Moore et al 2004;Jün-ger et al 2011) sowie die Fähigkeit zur Empathie können durch entsprechende Trainings nachweislich verbessert werden (Yedidia et al 2003;Jünger et al 2005). Daher haben die Curricula der medizinischen Ausbildungsstätten in den letzten Jahren zahlreiche Reformierungen durchlaufen (vgl.…”

The Introduction and Effectiveness of Simulation-based Learning in Medical Education

“…The evaluation of the clinical skills of medical students is feasible in a standardized manner. Actually the usefulness of simulation-based education has been shown to improve the relationship between patients and students, the clinical activities of the students on the ward, and the safety of medical practice (2)(3)(4)(5).…”