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Comparative Study
. 2017 Jul 10;17(1):111.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-017-0950-z.

Performance of International Medical Students In psychosocial medicine

D Huhn  1 , J Lauter  2 , D Roesch Ely  3 , E Koch  4 , A Möltner  5 , W Herzog  2 , F Resch  4 , S C Herpertz  3 , C Nikendei  2
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Performance of International Medical Students In psychosocial medicine

D Huhn et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: Particularly at the beginning of their studies, international medical students face a number of language-related, social and intercultural challenges. Thus, they perform poorer than their local counterparts in written and oral examinations as well as in Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) in the fields of internal medicine and surgery. It is still unknown how international students perform in an OSCE in the field of psychosocial medicine compared to their local fellow students.

Methods: All students (N = 1033) taking the OSCE in the field of psychosocial medicine and an accompanying written examination in their eighth or ninth semester between 2012 and 2015 were included in the analysis. The OSCE consisted of four different stations, in which students had to perform and manage a patient encounter with simulated patients suffering from 1) post-traumatic stress disorder, 2) schizophrenia, 3) borderline personality disorder and 4) either suicidal tendency or dementia. Students were evaluated by trained lecturers using global checklists assessing specific professional domains, namely building a relationship with the patient, conversational skills, anamnesis, as well as psychopathological findings and decision-making.

Results: International medical students scored significantly poorer than their local peers (p < .001; η2 = .042). Within the specific professional domains assessed, they showed poorer scores, with differences in conversational skills showing the highest effect (p < .001; η2 = .053). No differences emerged within the multiple-choice examination (p = .127).

Conclusion: International students showed poorer results in clinical-practical exams in the field of psychosocial medicine, with conversational skills yielding the poorest scores. However, regarding factual and practical knowledge examined via a multiple-choice test, no differences emerged between international and local students. These findings have decisive implications for relationship building in the doctor-patient relationship.

Keywords: Conversational skills; Examination performance; International medical students; OSCE; Psychosocial medicine.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable. The ethics committee of the Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg (www.medizinische-fakultaet-hd.uni-heidelberg.de/ethikkommission, contact: Christian.Deisenroth@med.uni-heidelberg.de) stated that they would not require an ethics approval on retrospective analyses of anonymous data.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

One of the authors, CN, is an associate editor of BMC Medical Education. All authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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