Performance on the radiology component of a critical clinical skills examination.
OBJECTIVE
Clinical competence certification is now required in some specialties in medicine. A Comprehensive Clinical Assessment (CCA) was created to test mastery of critical skills by students at the end of the 3rd year of medical school.


METHODS
The CCA is a series of stations that test skills the faculty consider important for all medical students (eg, breast examination, electrocardiogram reading, chest pain assessment, ophthalmology photographs). The radiology station was designed to evaluate imaging skills believed to be taught and learned in the core 3rd-year rotations.


RESULTS
External measures (National Board Examinations, grade point average, and overall score) of clinical performance of the 608 medical students who completed the CCA examination between 1991 and 1993 were found to be correlated with the radiology station scores.


CONCLUSIONS
The radiology station in the CCA examination is a reproducible measure of clinical performance.
Blane
C E
CE
Department of Radiology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, USA.
Fitzgerald
J T
JT
Bowerman
R A
RA
Schlesinger
A E
AE
Barclay
M L
ML
Zelenock
G B
GB
McQuillan
M
M
Davis
W K
WK
D002568:Certification; D002983:Clinical Competence; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011871:Radiology / Q000193:education*; D013337:Students, Medical