Self-Assessment of Clinical Skills in Medical Internship

Abstract

Background and Objectives Self-assessment of clinical performance in a clinical setting is defined as the process of collecting internal and external data, interpreting the data on personal performance, and comparing them with a set of standards. The current study aimed at analyzing self-assessment of clinical skills among medical interns at Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran, and determining the relationship between practical skills and theoretical knowledge. Methods The current cross sectional, descriptive, analytical study was conducted in 2014 on a total of 141 interns from Kerman University of Medical Sciences selected via census sampling. Data were collected using a checklist including the main procedural skills of medical students and analyzed using the Mann-Whitney and the Kruskal-Wallis tests with SPSS. Results The majority of participants were female (n = 79; 56%). The mean score of males` clinical skills was higher than that of females, and the difference was statistically significant (P = 0.001). Analysis of the relationship between internship duration and clinical skill scores showed that the mean score of interns who had completed 6 months of their internship was higher than that of the ones who had not; the difference was statistically significant (P = 0.001). Conclusions Since the performance of future general practitioners highly depends on their learning and mastery of clinical skills, acquisition of these essential skills during internships is an important objective of medical students. Correct and complete training of clinical skills, especially during internships, is integrated into the medical curriculum, although its implementation requires careful planning and compliance with the medical standards.