A comparison of performance between third-year students completing a pediatric ambulatory rotation on campus vs in the community

Abstract

Objective: To compare the performance of third-year medical students who completed the ambulatory component of their pediatric rotation in a community setting with the performance of third-year medical students who had their ambulatory experience on campus. Methods: As part of a pilot project to implement a third-year Multidisciplinary Ambulatory Clerkship, 61 third-year medical students spent 12 weeks rotating through the primary care disciplines of family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatric practitioners' offices at sites distant from the university campus while 127 students remained on campus for their ambulatory experiences in these disciplines. The components of the overall pediatric grade consisted of a clinical performance evaluation in the ambulatory setting (4 weeks), a clinical performance evaluation on a 4-week inpatient rotation, and a grade from a multiple-choice final examination. Results: The overall mean±SD final pediatric grade of students receiving their ambulatory pediatrics experience in the Multidisciplinary Ambulatory Clerkship was 86.5±3.4 compared with 88.0±3.4 for students receiving their ambulatory experience on campus (P