Assessing Individual Competency Differences Between Third- and Fourth-Year Medical Students Using the National...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Emergency Medicine Assessment
• Clinical Skills Evaluation

Background:

• Medical students' emergency department rotations utilize on-shift evaluations.
• The National Clinical Assessment Tool for Medical Students in the Emergency Department (NCAT-EM) is the standard evaluation tool.
• Assessing skill progression between different training levels is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the NCAT-EM's ability to differentiate skill levels between third-year (MS3) and fourth-year (MS4) medical students.
• To determine if MS4s demonstrate superior performance compared to MS3s in emergency department clinical skills.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 930 performance evaluations from MS3 and MS4 students between May 2022 and June 2023.
• Comparison of student performance across six assessment domains using the NCAT-EM.
• Statistical analysis to identify significant differences in skill levels.

Main Results:

• MS4s showed statistically significant higher performance than MS3s in emergency recognition and management (37.4% vs. 23.8%, p=0.03).
• MS4s also demonstrated significantly better communication skills (46.2% vs. 33.6%, p=0.03).
• Trends indicated MS4 superiority in other domains, consistent with validation studies.

Conclusions:

• The NCAT-EM reliably differentiated between MS3 and MS4 students in emergency recognition, management, and communication.
• The tool shows potential for assessing clinical skill progression in medical students.
• Further validation may confirm differences in other assessment domains.