Demystifying "learning" in clinical rotations: do immersive patient encounters predict achievement on the clinical performance examination (CPX)?
BACKGROUND
Although the Liaison Committee on Medical Education required U.S. medical schools to quantify students' clinical encounters, optimum patient exposure needed to predict performance has been elusive. This study explored the relationship between comprehensive patient encounters logged on personal digital assistants (PDAs) during three medicine clerkships, to performance on a clinical performance examination (CPX).


METHODS
PDA log data for 166 medical students were used to identify educationally "rich" patient encounters, where students were assigned full responsibility for patient care.


RESULTS
Univariate regression analyses predicting the effect of immersive patient encounters on CPX case scores did not show statistical significance.


CONCLUSIONS
Amount of patient exposure defined by the richness of student-patient interaction did not reflect on the CPX performance for six selected cases. Further research should examine qualitatively different learning experiences occurring with patient encounters and a higher volume of exposure to predict outcomes.
Fung
Cha-Chi
CC
UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Dean's Office/Ed&R, 60-051 CHS, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1722, USA. ccfung@mednet.ucla.edu
Relan
Anju
A
Wilkerson
LuAnn
L
D000124:Achievement; D002982:Clinical Clerkship / Q000379:methods*; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards*; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000592:standards*; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D016544:Patient Simulation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012577:Schools, Medical; D013337:Students, Medical; D014481:United States