The impact of previous clinical skills training exposure and clerkship setting
Some students (n=15) were peer tutors at the time of assessment. They were trained to perform and to teach younger students how to perform different clinical skills. Their advantage can be seen at the total OSCE score during the first testing. On average, they received a higher total OSCE score in comparison with other students (95.3% vs. 88.3%). Students who were not peer tutors gained progress on the second testing, and students that were peer tutors did not have significantly higher total OSCE score on the second testing, which implies that non-tutors practiced the clinical skills during the clerkship equalized their skills to a common level than their peers.
Each department and each hospital have different approach towards students. We predicted that university hospitals would have a more pedagogical approach towards students, therefore students would improve significantly during clerkship compared to their peers. Our study reveals that students that spent their time during Internal medicine clerkship at a tertiary university hospital had lower total OSCE scores, which however was statistically not significant, in comparison with peers at other regional hospitals (92.0% vs. 92.8%). Assessing current competencies, our study shows, that students gain appropriate exposure to clinical skills regardless of hospital level.