Is it possible to teach history taking and physical examination by training?

Abstract

Based on the criticism concerning traditional teaching methods, problem-based courses were introduced in the medical education of the University of Munich to foster the acquistion of action knowledge. One of these courses is the so-called MuSkel-course (course of musculosceletal diseases and injury). This course ends with a Triple Jump examination, the first step of which is an examination with a standardized patient in an OSCE-format (Objective Strutured Clinical Examination). In order to prepare the students for this exam, an OSCE-training was introduced with the fourth MuSkel-course. This study aimed at answering the question, to what extent this training exhibited a better knowledge. For that, the performance of students without training (control group) was compared with that of students having received two training sessions (experimental group). The results demonstrated that the experimental group performed better than the control group in only a few but important tests (identification of important points in medical history taking and clinical examination, the attitude towards the patient, the call for further diagnostic tests).

Keywords

• undergraduate medical education
• training support
• clinical skills
• clinical competence