Most physicians and medical educators would agree that basic clinical skills are critical
to physician medical decision-making. However, even with initiation of the United
States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step 2 Clinical Skills Examination in 2004,
there is little spoken consensus or dialogue among medical schools concerning the
delivery of curriculum on clinical skills, the existence of agreed upon standards,
or even organized discussion about standards.
1
The manner in which medical students learn clinical skills is widely varied, and
the acquisition of the skills is evaluated in a variety of ways, from written and
multiple-choice exams to standardized patient/simulation-based performance exams.
This commentary provides background information about the current status of clinical
skills courses in U.S. medical schools, and proposes that the time has come for greater
consensus on the clinical skills curriculum across medical schools, integration and
collaboration of the curriculum with the basic science courses as well as the clinical
clerkships within medical schools, and meaningful outcome measures to determine success
in meeting these goals.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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© 2005 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
