title: U.S. and Canadian internal medicine clerkship directors' opinions about teaching procedural and interpretive skills to medical students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Although medical students gain experience in performing procedures during their clinical clerkships, which skills they should acquire remains unclear. The authors sought opinions from internal medicine clerkship directors regarding procedural and interpretive skills students should and do learn during clerkships.
  
  
  METHODS
  In 2002, the 123 members of the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine (CDIM) were confidentially surveyed using a 79-item questionnaire about the appropriateness of 20 procedural skills, demographics, clerkship characteristics, and curricula in procedural skills. Participants had the choice of completing a mailed paper questionnaire or an electronic version on the CDIM's Web site. After univariate analysis, adjusted comparisons among participants were made using linear regression.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Surveys were completed by 89 clerkship directors (72%). Most thought that students should be taught 17 of 20 procedural skills. However, the majority thought students do not learn five of these skills. Over 80% of respondents thought students should learn: chest x-ray interpretation, electrocardiogram interpretation, phlebotomy, throat culture, blood culture, urinalysis, Pap smear, central line placement, peripheral blood smear. However, the majority thought students do not learn five of these skills. The mean of skills that should be taught and are learned were 15 (standard deviation [SD] = 3) and 12 (SD = 4), respectively. About half used formal teaching in procedures (44%), used logs (51%) and tested competency (45%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CDIM members thought medical students should be taught a variety of procedural skills but thought students fail to learn many. These findings may help prioritize which procedures to teach. It may be helpful to develop standardized curricular materials on teaching procedures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Shadyside, 5230 Centre Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15232, USA. elnickim@upmc.edu
authors.forename: D Michael
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Elnicki
authors.forename: Jose
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van Londen
authors.forename: Paul A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Hemmer
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fagan
authors.forename: Raymond
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002170:Canada; D002982:Clinical Clerkship / Q000592:standards; D003479:Curriculum; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000193:education*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011361:Professional Competence; D014481:United States