Medical Students' Clerkship Exposures to Expected Clinical Skills and Comparison with the Specified Minimums

One of the most important goals of general medical education is to achieve acceptable competencies in clinical skills. Medical schools have to take steps to meet International Standards for general Medical Education. The aim of this study was to determine the amount of medical students' clerkship exposures to expected clinical skills and compare with the Specified minimums at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences.

This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted in 2015-16 academic year using census method (n=95). Educational Council of the clinical departments was provided with a checklist of the expected skills and the minimum number of exposures to those skills was determined. The number of exposures for each clinical skill during the clerkship period and the background information of the students were asked for in the checklist. Data were analyzed using one sample t-test, independent t-test, chi-square and Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients.

None of the students could meet the minimum number of exposures established by the Educational Council in to the clinical skills venous cutdown, anterior nasal packing, arterial blood sampling, venipuncture and serum infusion, splinting, basic CPR, pediatric routine vaccination, wound dressing with debridement and specialized washing process, suprapubic sampling, simple casting and cast removing, and superficial skin abscess drainage. The rate of conformity was adequate in CPR (ACLS, BCLS) and nasogastric intubation, but low in other skills.

The lack of conformity of the exposures to the minimums expected in the number of exposures to the essential clinical skills and the weaknesses in the clinical training of the students indicate the poor quality of clinical education. It seems that achieving the desired conformity for each clinical skill depends on peripheral training and the greater collaboration of clinical residents and clinical faculty members.