Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To determine the feasibility of oral case presentation (OCP) encounter cards as a tool for formative evaluation, to estimate the reliability and validity of the ratings when used in a medicine clerkship, and to examine whether the use of OCP encounter cards improves students' OCP skills. DESIGN: Randomized controlled study. SETTING: Medicine core clerkship at a U.S. medical school. PARTICIPANTS/INTERVENTION: Students enrolled in the medicine core clerkship (n=164) from January to December of 2003 were randomly assigned to receive weekly feedback using OCP encounter cards rating nine presentation compentencies or receive usual feedback. Mean OCP ratings were correlated with multiple summative assessments. Performance on an end-of-clerkship OCP was compared between intervention and control groups. MAIN RESULTS: Eighty percent of cards were completed. The mean OCP rating averaged over 9 competencies was 7.7 (SD=0.8) on a 9-point scale. Standard error of ratings was 0.3. OCP ratings were correlated with inpatient evaluations (r=.58), inpatient ratings of presentation skills (r=.43), and final grades (r=.40). Final OCP performance was similar for the intervention and control groups (7.0 vs 7.2, P=.09). CONCLUSION: OCP encounter cards are a novel and feasible tool to assess clerkship students' oral case presentation skills. OCP card ratings are reproducible, and validity is suggested by their correlation with multiple markers of performance. However, encounter cards did not improve performance on summative oral presentations.