Different formats for a neurology clerkship do not influence written examination scores

Changes in health care delivery required substitution of a number of alternatives for the traditional inpatient clerkship used in the neurology education of fourth-year medical students at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and for third-year medical students from Georgetown University.

We retrospectively analyzed grades on a locally generated multiple-choice examination based on a student objective list. Scores from students rotating on ambulatory neurology, neurosurgery, child neurology, neurorehabilitation, and rotations at other military hospitals over a 2-year period were compared with those achieved by students in a traditional clerkship at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

There were no significant differences in the grades between any of the groups.

Student acquisition of factual material was not influenced by the type of clinical experience or by whether the student is in the third or fourth year of medical school.