title: Assessment of clinical competence of undergraduate medical students.
abstract: The assessment is a key determinant of learning by the students. Validity, reliability, objectivity and practicability are the fundamental attributes of assessment. It is important to understand how a given tool of assessment fares on these criteria. The conventional practical clinical examination consisting of "long"/"short" cases lacks objectivity and reliability. It also has a limited validity because sufficient sampling is not possible. Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), on the other hand, is a comprehensive, reliable and objective test, but does not take a holistic view of the patient. Viva-voce often revolves around theory and is highly subjective. Since no single tool of assessment of clinical competence is ideal, a combination of "long"/"short" case (s) with OSCE is suggested as a more rational examination.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.
authors.forename: V K
authors.initials: VK
authors.lastname: Paul
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D006801:Humans; D013337:Students, Medical