Improving the Clinical Skills Performance of Graduating Medical Students Using "WISE OnCall," a Multimedia...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Clinical Skills Assessment
• Simulation-Based Learning

Background:

• Residency transition programs aim to enhance patient care quality and safety.
• Standardized best practices for medical student instruction and readiness assessment are still developing.
• The WISE OnCall module was developed to prepare interns for common clinical coverage issues.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of the WISE OnCall interactive curriculum on clinical skills during simulation.
• To determine if completing the module improves intern readiness for residency.
• To assess changes in clinical skills, clinical reasoning, and professionalism post-intervention.

Main Methods:

• A pre-post study design involving senior medical students.
• Students interacted with standardized patients (SPs) and nurses (SNs) before and after completing the WISE OnCall module on oliguria.
• Clinical skills were assessed using behaviorally anchored checklists; clinical reasoning by postencounter notes; professionalism by SP ratings.

Main Results:

• Significant improvements were observed in clinical skills performance (assessed by SPs and SNs) and clinical reasoning (postencounter notes) post-module.
• Effect sizes for skill improvement ranged from moderate to large (Cohen's d, 0.30-1.88).
• Professionalism ratings by SPs unexpectedly decreased after module completion (Cohen's d, -0.93).

Conclusions:

• A brief, computer-based educational intervention effectively enhanced graduating medical students' clinical skills.
• The WISE OnCall module demonstrates potential for improving residency readiness.
• Further investigation is needed to understand the decline in professionalism scores.