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. 2021 Jun 4;31(4):1333-1341.
doi: 10.1007/s40670-021-01309-8. eCollection 2021 Aug.

The Impact of Shortened Clinical Clerkships on Medical Student Performance and Clerkship Assessment

Lindsay C Strowd  1 , Nicholas Hartman  1 , Kim Askew  1 , Andrea Vallevand  1 , Kim McDonough  1 , Jon Goforth  1 , David Manthey  1
Affiliations

The Impact of Shortened Clinical Clerkships on Medical Student Performance and Clerkship Assessment

Lindsay C Strowd et al. Med Sci Educ. .

Abstract

Intro: Medical schools sometimes need to adjust the length of third-year clinical clerkships. The literature surrounding the effects of shortened clerkships on student experience and performance is mixed.

Methods: Our medical school shortened the third year by an average of 20% per clerkship to accommodate a curricular re-design in 2018-2019. We examined test scores and measures of clinical performance as well as student experience in order to understand the impact of this change.

Results: Two hundred and eight students were included in the analysis, 104 in each cohort. No statistically significant differences were noted between cohorts on NBME subject examination results. There were no significant differences on Step 2 CK scores between the traditional curriculum cohort (M = 249.4, SD = 13.7) and shortened curriculum cohort (M = 248.7, SD = 15.8). Student performance on OSCE cases was similar. Similar percentages of students rated each clerkship either "good" or "excellent" in the traditional (77%) and shortened (78%) curriculum.

Conclusion: There was no significant impact on student test scores after shortening the curriculum. Measures of student satisfaction and experience also remained stable, likely related to emphasis on retaining patient care experiences and streamlining of didactics. Curricular shortening during the third year of medical school was feasible and safe from the student perspective in our experience.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of InterestThe authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Subject examination results comparing the mean scores and 95% confidence intervals between curriculum cohorts
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
OSCE examination results comparing the mean scores and 95% confidence intervals between curriculum cohorts. *LLQ left lower quadrant, RUQ right upper quadrant
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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