Mapping Direct Observations From Objective Structured Clinical Examinations to the Milestones Across Specialties

Little is known about residents' performance on the milestones at the institutional level. Our institution formed a work group to explore this using an institutional-level curriculum and residents' evaluation of the milestones.

We assessed whether beginner-level milestones for interpersonal and communication skills (ICS) related to observable behaviors in ICS-focused objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) for postgraduate year (PGY) 1 residents across specialties.

The work group compared ICS subcompetencies across 12 programs to identify common beginner-level physician-patient communication milestones. The selected ICS milestone sets were compared for common language with the ICS-OSCE assessment tool-the Kalamazoo Essential Elements of Communication Checklist-Adapted (KEECC-A). To assess whether OSCE scores related to ICS milestone scores, all PGY-1 residents from programs that were part of Next Accreditation System Phase 1 were identified; their OSCE scores from July 2013 to June 2014 and ICS subcompetency scores from December 2014 were compared.

The milestones for 10 specialties and the transitional year had at least 1 ICS subcompetency that related to physician-patient communication. The language of the ICS beginner-level milestones appears similar to behaviors outlined in the KEECC-A. All 60 residents with complete data received at least a beginner-level ICS subcompetency score and at least a satisfactory score on all 3 OSCEs.

The ICS-OSCE scores for PGY-1 residents appear to relate to beginner-level milestones for physician-patient communication across multiple specialties.