Medical Education > Evaluation of the Use of Patient-focused Simulation Models in Student Assessment at the End of a Surgery Clerkship
Evaluation of the Use of Patient-focused Simulation Models in Student Assessment at the End of a Surgery Clerkship
For further information contact
Judith.Veloski@jefferson.edu Katherine.Worzala@jefferson.edu or Jon.Veloski@jefferson.edu
The objective of this continuing study has been to evaluate the use of a combination of standardized patients and simulation models to assess students’ skills at the end of a required, third-year surgery clerkship
The surgery clerkship director and clinical skills faculty reviewed the objectives and clinical requirements of the six-week core surgery clerkship in order to identify the essential skills that should be assessed in a brief clinical skills examination at the end of the clerkship. Three cases were developed related to the evaluation and acute management of abdominal pain, GI bleeding and a laceration of the arm. Each case required students to gather clinical data from the standardized patient and to perform various tasks on simulation models. Although the procedures were performed on body part task trainer models, the students and patients were instructed to act as though these invasive bedside procedures were being performed on the conscious patient
Experienced standardized patients with excellent assessment skills were selected. A total of 15 patients were trained between July and November to present the cases, and to use checklists and rating scales to assess the students’ data gathering skills, procedural abilities and professionalism. They also had to set up the simulation models after each student encounter. The encounters were video-recorded
A total of 118 students completed the clinical skills examination in four rotations between July and December, 2006. The study team reviewed the video recordings of samples of students in the first three rotations. Changes were made to the cases and checklist by consensus of the clerkship director and clinical skills faculty. Scores relating to the students’ procedural abilities have generally been high, and video review has thus far found reliability to be high also
A more formal study will be developed after the complete results of this pilot year are available.
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