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Development and validation of a musculoskeletal physical examination decision-making test for medical students
Julie Y Bishop1, Hisham M Awan, David M Rowley
1Department of Orthopaedics, Ohio State University Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio 43221, USA. Julie.Bishop@osumc.edu
Objective:
Despite a renewed emphasis among educators, musculoskeletal education is still lacking in medical school and residency training programs. We created a musculoskeletal multiple-choice physical examination decision-making test to assess competency and physical examination knowledge of our trainees.
Design:
We developed a 20-question test in musculoskeletal physical examination decision-making test with content that most medical students and orthopedic residents should know. All questions were reviewed by ratings of US orthopedic chairmen. It was administered to postgraduate year 2 to 5 orthopedic residents and 2 groups of medical students: 1 group immediately after their 3-week musculoskeletal course and the other 1 year after the musculoskeletal course completion. We hypothesized that residents would score highest, medical students 1 year post-musculoskeletal training lowest, and students immediately post-musculoskeletal training midrange. We administered an established cognitive knowledge test to compare student knowledge base as we expected the scores to correlate.
Setting:
Academic medical center in the Midwestern United States.
Participants:
Orthopedic residents, chairmen, and medical students.
Results:
Fifty-four orthopedic chairmen (54 of 110 or 49%) responded to our survey, rating a mean overall question importance of 7.12 (0 = Not Important; 5 = Important; 10 = Very Important). Mean physical examination decision-making scores were 89% for residents, 77% for immediate post-musculoskeletal trained medical students, and 59% 1 year post-musculoskeletal trained medical students (F = 42.07, p<0.001). The physical examination decision-making test was found to be internally consistent (Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 = 0.69). The musculoskeletal cognitive knowledge test was 78% for immediate post-musculoskeletal trained students and 71% for the 1 year post-musculoskeletal trained students. The student physical examination and cognitive knowledge scores were correlated (r = 0.54, p<0.001), but were not significantly different for either class.
Conclusions:
The physical examination decision-making test was found to be internally consistent in exposing the deficiencies of musculoskeletal education skills of our medical students and differentiated between ability levels in musculoskeletal physical examination decision-making (residents vs recently instructed musculoskeletal students vs 1 year post-musculoskeletal instruction).
