Assessment of Medical Students in Clinical Clerkships

Abstract

The clinical clerkship focuses students on developing their ability to perform comprehensive diagnosis and management of patients with common undifferentiated problems by the integration of knowledge and clinical reasoning. Therefore, the clerkship evaluation system should assess their actual problem solving and professional behavior. However, concern remains that clerkship evaluations are imprecise and highly variable. This review is designed to provide faculty members with concepts, options, and a methodology to actively teach and evaluate the clinical clerkship, as well as offer encouragement and inspiration to medical students. We reviewed past and current clinical clerkship evaluations and discuss several tips to improve clinical excellence such as continuity, transparency of the evaluation process, a faculty development program, practical examination of clinical skills, implementation of a checklist for recording exposure and skills, providing prompt and constructive feedback to students, self-evaluation of professional performance, varying multi-faceted assessment combinations, being outpatient clinic-centered, and having dedicated faculty members who give students one-on-one contact with a preceptor.