Article
Graduates from different medical schools compared on a new performance assessment
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Published: | September 18, 2012 |
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Background and research question: Medical curricula become more and more vertically integrated (VI) to prepare graduates better for clinical practice. VI-curricula show early clinical education and focus on increasing clinical responsibility levels for trainees.
Method: To determine whether a VI-curriculum actually prepares medical graduates better for clinical practice, we designed an authentic assessment based on different facets of competence for medical near-graduates in the role of beginning residents on a very busy day. Sixty candidates participated: 30 VI (Utrecht, The Netherlands) and 30 non-VI (Hamburg, Germany). Each candidate was independently assessed by two clinicians, a nurse and standardized patients on different facets of competence. Afterwards, the clinicians indicated how much supervision they estimated each candidate would require on nine so called “Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs)”, unrelated to the observed scenarios.
Results: There was no difference in number of solved cases between the two groups. Graduates from a VI-curriculum received significantly higher scores for the facet of competence “active professional development”, with features like ‘reflection’ and ‘asking for feedback’. Candidates and assessors experienced the assessment as highly realistic.
Conclusion: A vertically integrated curriculum at medical school prepares medical graduates better for “active professional development”, which is important for life long learning [1], [2], [3].
References
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