Assessing the value of student case write-ups and write-up evaluations

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Clinical Skills Assessment

Background:

• Case write-ups are a common method for medical students to document patient encounters.
• Evaluating these write-ups is intended to assess clinical skills and provide learning feedback.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate medical student attitudes towards the educational value of case write-ups and their evaluations.
• To assess the usefulness of write-up evaluations in measuring clinical skills.
• To determine Canadian internal medicine course directors' views on current write-up evaluation practices.

Main Methods:

• A survey was administered to 140 medical students at McGill University post-internal medicine course.
• Internal medicine course directors at 16 Canadian medical schools were also surveyed.

Main Results:

• Broad agreement exists between students and directors on the learning utility of case write-ups and evaluations.
• Significant concerns were raised regarding the variability in evaluation criteria and standards.
• Discrepancies in assessment practices were noted across different institutions.

Conclusions:

• Case write-ups and their evaluations are perceived as valuable learning tools in internal medicine.
• Inconsistent evaluation standards pose a challenge to effective clinical skills assessment.
• Standardization of criteria for case write-up evaluation is recommended to enhance educational value and assessment reliability.