Standardizing Educational Opportunities on the Complete Pediatric Physical Exam (Head to Toe)

Medical College of Wisconsin

Status: Completed

Conditions: Pediatric Physical Exam

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00711659

PRO00006933

Details and patient eligibility

About

The study proposes that a workshop-based educational experience which utilizes a standardized preceptor training session, a standard skills assessment checklist, and videotaped feedback will improve student comfort and confidence in performing the pediatric physical examination and will provide information to improve the curriculum offerings.

Full description

The baseline clinical experience of third year medical students rotating through the clerkship varies, depending on previous clerkships and volunteer opportunities previously encountered. The less experienced third year medical student may require more time and feedback to develop competency. The availability and experience of clinical preceptors and background of the patient may also play a role in the development of pediatric physical examination skills. Other institutions have offered standardized approaches to teaching the health maintenance physical exam. To address these issues, we propose a workshop-based educational experience to (1)determine whether offering a workshop that standardizes exposure to physical exams for junior medical students will improve opportunities to practice physical exam skills in a non-threatening environment, (2)promote immediate feedback to the student that allows for self-reflection by viewing a videotape of their performance, (3)delineate how physical exam skills change in junior medical students throughout the year, and (4)evaluate the inter-rater variability of preceptors teaching health maintenance exams to students rotating through the pediatric clerkship.

Enrollment: 519 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• third year medical students will participate in the physical exam skills workshop as a requirement of their pediatric clerkship; data obtained from review of videotapes of students who consent for data use will be included

Exclusion criteria

• data from students who do not consent to use of data will not be used for analysis

Trial design

519 participants in 1 patient group

1

Description:

all third year medical students starting their pediatric clerkship rotation