2006, Number 2
Integral Evaluation of Clinical Competence Through the Professional Examination
Ponce de León-Castañeda ME, Ortiz-Montalvo A, Bonilla-González I, Berlanga-Balderas FJ
Full text
Language: Spanish
References: 5
Page: 119-129
PDF size: 320.20 Kb.
ABSTRACT
Objective: We aimed to describe an assessment procedure for the integral evaluation of clinical competence by means of a professional exam presented by physicians-surgeons who had completed their studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s (UNAM) School of Medicine and reported the results obtained by these students. Design: We designed a descriptive cross-sectional study. Materials and Methods: We analyzed professional examination results. The theoretical phase covered reliability, simple frequencies, totals-by-area, and pathologies explored. The practical phase included performance-by-area of clinical competence during 2001 and 2002 time periods. Results: For these time periods, 1,185 and 1,159 students were assessed in the theoretical phase, and 927 and 610 students were assessed in the practical phase, respectively. Reliability for the theoretical examination was 0.987 and 0.94, respectively; reliability was not determined for the practical phase. Performance of regular students was better than performance for students taking longer to complete the study plan. Pediatrics presented highest performance, while areas such as diabetes and hypertension presented the lowest. Low scores were found in three of the four dimensions explored for the practical phase. Conclusions: The professional examination constitutes an integral assessment of clinical competence and allows for identification of strengths and weaknesses in the students’ education.REFERENCES