S.Scott Obenshain

Assessment of ethical decisions and values

Summary. The development and pilot testing of the Professional Decisions and Values Test (PDV) is described. The PDV is designed to assess how ethical conflicts are dealt with by medical and law students and which moral values motivate them. Data from two consecutive classes of entering medical and law students are presented and their action tendencies and ethical values are compared. The findings support the construct validity of the test. Regarding reliability, stability over time is present for action tendencies but not for values. Perhaps the ethical values of entering medical and law students do not become stable until later. Change in ethical values can be studied with the PDV for groups, not individuals, during the first year of professional education.

Evaluating Medical Students' Skills in Obtaining Informed Consent for HIV Testing

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate fourth-year medical students’ abilities to obtain informed consent or refusal for HIV testing through a performance-based evaluation method.DESIGN: Student competence was assessed in a standardized patient interaction in which the student obtained informed consent or refusal for HIV testing. A previously validated 16-item checklist was completed by the standardized patient. A subset was independently reviewed and scored by a faculty member to calculate interrater reliability for this report. Student feedback on the assessment was elicited.SETTING: School of Medicine at the University of New Mexico.PATIENTS/PARTICIPANTS: All senior medical students in the class of 2000 were included.INTERVENTIONS: A 10-minute standardized patient interaction was administered within the context of a formal comprehensive performance assessment.MEASUREMENTS and MAIN RESULTS: Seventy-nine students participated, and most (96%) demonstrated competence on the station. For the 15 specific items, the mean score was 25.5 out of 30 possible points (range, 13 to 30; SD, 3.5) on the checklist. A strong positive correlation (rs=.79) was found between the total score on the 15 Likert-scaled items and the score in response to the global item, “I would return to this clinician’ (mean, 3.5; SD, 1.0). Scores given by the standardized patients and the faculty rater were well correlated. The station was generally well received by students, many of whom were stimulated to pursue further learning.CONCLUSIONS: This method of assessing medical students’ abilities to obtain informed consent or refusal for HIV testing can be translated to a variety of clinical settings. Such efforts may help in demonstrating competence in performing key ethics skills and may help ensure ethically sound clinical care for people at risk for HIV infection.

Assessing clinical competence of medical students in women's health care : Use of the objective structured clinical examination

Objective To assess clinical competency of third-year medical students completing a problem-oriented, primary care emphasis clerkship in obstetrics and gynecology using an objective structured clinical examination, and to determine the feasibility of implementing the objective structured clinical examination in the curriculum. Methods Sixteen groups of third-year medical students were evaluated prospectively on their exit performances with a six-station objective structured clinical examination designed to test clinical competency in basic primary care obstetrics-gynecology. Consistency of scores across stations, differences in performance for separate groups, and relationship of objective structured clinical examination scores compared with other indicators of medical proficiency, such as written examinations and faculty evaluations, were assessed. Results One hundred ninety-eight students were evaluated over 25 months. Test reliability across stations revealed a values ranging between .50 and .56. Correlations between performance on the objective structured clinical examination and the written test (r = .10) were low, demonstrating that the objective structured clinical examination clearly tests a separate domain of student capability. Cost of the objective structured clinical examination was

Use of student-centred, computer-mediated communication to enhance the medical school curriculum

81.66 per student. Conclusion The objective structured clinical examination is a reliable and valid test of the clinical competence of medical students in the primary health care of women. It provides information that is not obtained by more traditional assessment modalities at a reasonable cost.

Professional decisions and ethical values in medical and law students.

While it is clear that computers will play an important role in the study and practice of medicine their introduction into the curriculum remains controversial. Computer purchase has been made compulsory for incoming students.

Assessing Medical Students' Competence in Obtaining Informed Consent"""

No abstract available.