Development of an Objective Structured Clinical Examination For Assessment of Clinical Skills in an Emergency Medicine Clerkship

Abstract

Assessment of medical students in their emergency medicine (EM) clerkship is often based on clinical shift evaluations and written examinations. Clinical evaluations offer some insight into students’ ability to apply knowledge to clinical problems, but are notoriously unreliable, with score variance that may be driven as much by error as by actual student performance.1-6 Clinical evaluations are also limited by the unpredictability of pathology in emergency department (ED) patients, and by patient safety considerations that prevent students from independently managing patients, especially those with high-acuity conditions. Additionally, there is evidence that the basic skills of history and physical exam are rarely observed by faculty members, and the feedback they receive on these domains is limited.7-9 These factors hinder EM educators in their effort to objectively assess students’ progress relative to clerkship objectives, particularly those that pertain to emergent care.

Keywords

• Objective Structured Clinical Exam
• Emergency Medicine
• Undergraduate Medical Education
• Milestones