A multidisciplinary surgery clerkship: ten-year experience

This article describes the principles, logistics, and curriculum of an integrated, multidisciplinary surgery clerkship. This clerkship, tailored to mastery-based instruction, was designed to meet specified goals unique to this institution and structured to obviate weaknesses of traditional clerkship formats. Evaluation methods have been designed to assess the clerkship program, student performance in and reaction to the clerkship, and performance after graduation from medical school. Results indicated clerkship ratings by students are typically above average for all educational modalities and that six out of seven graduating classes rated the surgery clerkship significantly higher (p less than 0.05) than their other clerkship experiences. Other findings showed highly satisfactory to above average performance of graduates whether based on residency supervisors' evaluations or self-evaluations and higher ratings for the graduates who selected surgery residency programs than for those pursuing other disciplines.