Role of clinical skill centre in undergraduate medical education: Initial experience at Rehman Medical College...

To assess the performance of students on clinical skill factors and to measure the satisfaction level of students related to the training.

The descriptive study was conducted at Rehman Medical College, Peshawar, Pakistan, from August 1 to September 15, 2013, and comprised all third-year medical students who had undergone clinical skill training. Their performance was evaluated through end-of-module objective structured clinical examination. Students' feedback measuring satisfaction on a five-point Likert scale was obtained on a designed validated tool. Monitoring of the clinical skills centre training programme was done by the quality enhancement cell at the college. SPSS 16 was used for statistical analysis.

Of the 98 students who took the examinations, 94(96%) cleared generic stations and 70(72%) to 96(98%) discipline-based stations. Overall, 94(96%) cleared the first objective structured clinical examination, ranging from 83(84.6%) for Persian language conversation training to 98(100%) for general physical examination. In the second examination, 90(92%) students passed; ranging from 72(73%) for Gynaecology to 97(98.7%) each for Surgery and Ear, Nose and Throat. There was no significant difference between mean results of the two exams (p>0.05).

Clinical skills training achieved the desired objectives and outcomes. However, continuing studies need to be done to establish reliability of the programme.