Incremental change in student knowledge during a third-year family medicine clerkship.
OBJECTIVE
Family medicine clerkships compete with other clinical experiences for a limited amount of available curricular time. The overlap of clinical material covered by other departments raises the possibility that students will realize increased or diminished added value from a family practice rotation if they take it later in the third-year schedule.


METHODS
All students (n = 420) in a required third-year clerkship in two geographically distant medical schools completed pre- and post-clerkship multiple choice examinations on the clinical content of family practice. School A has a lock-step schedule; all the clinical rotations are taken in a specific order by all students. School B has a random schedule. These examinations were random samples, stratified by clinical subject area, from the Exam. Kit database, based on the text Essentials of Family Medicine, Second Edition. The difference between the pre- and post-clerkship scores determined the incremental performance.


RESULTS
There was no significant change in incremental performance over the course of the year at either school.


CONCLUSIONS
The increased fund of knowledge acquired during a family medicine clerkship, as measured by a multiple choice examination, is not diminished by prior clinical clerkships in other specialties.
Jacques
L B
LB
Department of Family Medicine, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA. jacquesl@gunet.georgetown.edu
D000328:Adult; D002982:Clinical Clerkship; D003479:Curriculum; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005194:Family Practice / Q000193:education*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013038:Specialization