An objective undergraduate clinical examination in child health

Abstract

A new type of test used to examine medical students' clinical skills in paediatrics is described. Each student has to circulate round a number of timed stations. At each one he performs a specified clinical procedure-such as history taking, physical examination, urine analysis, and radiological interpretation-and is marked according to his performance. This type of test is objective and can be extended to cover different aspects of clinical methods; it readily informs the student about his progress, and enables the teacher to look critically at his own technique.