title: Curriculum gaps in teaching clinical skills to Iranian undergraduate medical students.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The inefficacy of clinical skill education during the clerkship has been reported in several studies. The present study was conducted to evaluate the competency of medical students in performing several clinical skills through an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), aiming to evaluate the quality of the existing curriculum in the clerkship phase.
  
  
  METHODS
  The cross sectional study was conducted at the end of the clerkship period, before the students had entered the internship. The OSCE exam was conducted in the morning (2 different tracts) and in the evening (2 similar tracts) and 86 students participated in the exam. Each tract consisted of seven stations. The students' points in the stations assessing history taking and clinical skills were compared.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The students gained the highest points in the history taking stations, whereas the procedure stations accounted for the lowest points; there was a significant difference between these stations (p < 0.001). The female students achieved higher scores in the OSCE exam compared to males (p = 0.004).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The OSCE exam revealed the inefficacy of the current medical curriculum in teaching the required clinical skill to undergraduate medical students during the clerkship.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Imam Khomeini Hospital, Center for Educational Research in Medical Sciences (CERMS), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Azim
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mirzazadeh
authors.forename: Behrouz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bavarian
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Labaf
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Afshari
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nikoo
authors.forename: Zahra Sadat
authors.initials: ZS
authors.lastname: Meshkani
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Khashayar
keywords: Objective Structured Clinical Examination; clerkship; clinical exam; history taking; procedure; station