POSTER

Does a Change in Clerkship Curriculum Lead to Improved Performance on an End of Clerkship OSCE Station?

Authors: Moineau G¹, Humphrey-Murto S¹, I Bartman I², Wood T^2
1Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, ²Medical Council of Canada

Objective: To determine whether the addition of a specific topic to the clerkship curriculum improves medical student performance on an end of third year OSCE station on a specific diagnosis within that topic.

Methods: In 2003 we added a problem assisted learning case on diarrhea to the clerkship curriculum. Reference materials given to the student leader or tutor included an article on chronic non-specific diarrhea (CNSD). We retrospectively examined scores on the end of clerkship OSCE station on CNSD before 2001 and after 2004 and 2005 the change. The station required the student to take a history from a surrogate parent, answer an oral question from the faculty examiner on the differential diagnosis and discuss management with the parent.

Results: For the Pediatric OSCE stations in 2001 (n=68), 2004 (n=91), and 2005 (n=133) the mean percentages were 56.66, 67.01 and 63.94 respectively. There is a significant difference for the 01/04 comparison (p<.001), but not significant for 04/05 (p = .110).

Conclusions: These results suggest that the inclusion of specific content into the clerkship curriculum leads to improved performance related to that content during an end of clerkship OSCE station.