Abstract

BackgroundInterpersonal and communication skills (ICS) are important core competencies in medical education and certification. In this study, we identified self- and simulated patient (SP)-reported ratings of US first-year medical students’ ICS and the influence of age and gender on performance appraisal during the Objective-Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE).MethodsOSCE participants, including 172 first-year medical students and 15 SPs were asked to evaluate the students’ ICS using the American Board of Internal Medicine–Patient-Satisfaction Questionnaire (ABIM–PSQ), electronically and via paper, respectively. Self- and SP-reported ratings of students’ ICS were presented as the median on a 5-point Likert-scale and as three categories defined as “good,” “very good,” and “inadequate.”ResultsSPs assessed all 172 students in the OSCE, while 43.6% of students assessed their own performance. The majority of students and SPs evaluated the students’ ICS as very good. 23.3% of SPs and 5.3% of students rated the medical students’ ability to encourage patient question-asking and answer questions as inadequate (P < 0.002). Neither age nor gender influenced the medical students’ self-assessment of ICS. Female SPs assigned lower scores to students in regard to respecting patients and encouraging patient question-asking and answering. Older SPs was more likely to assign lower scores on all survey questions.ConclusionsIn the present study, self- and SP-reported ratings of first-year medical students’ ICS were mainly “very good” with no influence of students’ age or gender. Older age and female gender among the SPs were associated with a reduction in SP-reported ratings of students’ ICS.

Highlights

  • Interpersonal and communication skills (ICS) are important core competencies in medical education and certification

  • We assumed that ABIM-PSQ that was designed to survey actual patients could provide valuable information regarding ICS of medical students to explore the direction for improvement prior to clinical exposure

  • The survey protocol was approved as exempt from full review by the Rutgers Health Sciences Institutional Review Board because the investigation is based on the anonymous responses from the first-year medical students and simulated patient (SP) who participated in the Objective-Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) (Protocol #2018002140)

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Summary

Introduction

Interpersonal and communication skills (ICS) are important core competencies in medical education and certification. We identified self- and simulated patient (SP)-reported ratings of US first-year medical students’ ICS and the influence of age and gender on performance appraisal during the Objective-Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). The demonstration of effective interpersonal and communication skills (ICS) is one of the core competencies in both pre-and post-graduate medical education, [1] as well as physician certification [2]. One study that compared medical students’ selfreported and SP- and observer-assigned OSCE checklist rating during an OSCE demonstrated that students scored their communication skills lower compared to observers or SPs in 2 out of 12 categories [13]. This research is the first that uses the ABIMPSQ to identify and analyze SP-given ratings of first-year medical students’ ICS and self-assessed by students who participated in OSCE

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