National survey of clinical communication assessment in medical education in the United Kingdom (UK)
Abstract
Background All medical schools in the UK are required to be able to provide evidence of competence in clinical communication in their graduates. This is usually provided by summative assessment of clinical communication, but there is considerable variation in how this is carried out. This study aimed to gain insight into the current assessment of clinical communication in UK medical schools. Methods The survey was sent via e-mail to communication leads who then were asked to consult with all staff within their medical school involved in the assessment of communication. Results Results were obtained from 27 out of 33 schools (response rate 82%) and a total of 34 courses. The average number of assessments per year was 2.4 (minimum 0, maximum 10). The Objective Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE) was the most commonly used method of assessment (53%). Other assessments included MCQ and workplace based assessments. Only nine courses used a single method of assessment. Issues raised included, logistics and costs of assessing mainly by OSCE, the robustness and reliability of such exams and integration with other clinical skills. Conclusions It is encouraging that a variety of assessment methods are being used within UK medical schools and that these methods target different components of clinical communication skills acquisition.
Citation
Laidlaw , A H , Salisbury , H , Doherty , E M & Wiskin , C 2014 , ' National survey of clinical communication assessment in medical education in the United Kingdom (UK) ' , BMC Medical Education , vol. 14 , 10 . https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-14-10
Publication
BMC Medical Education
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1472-6920Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2014 Laidlaw et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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