Australian Medical Student Journal 5 The great wall of medical school: A comparison of barrier examinations across Australian medical schools

From the moment that a medical student receives their university offer until the moment they take the Hippocratic Oath in front of proud family and friends, they will tread a path only taken by a select number before them. However, with medical schools now in every state and territory of Australia, the journey will not be identical for all students. For some, this will be a marathon, with continuous assessment peppering the entire journey, while others will encounter multiple large hurdles, interspaced with periods of calm. Despite this very different experience of medical school, all will ultimately compete for an increasingly competitive pool of internship positions, which represent the key to unlocking their future medical careers. The ‘Barrier Examination ’ is a common term used for the final set of assessment of a medical student before being allowed to graduate as a doctor. At most medical schools, this is held in the final or penultimate year of study, and often consists of a combination of written (such as Multiple Choice Questions – MCQ) and clinical assessment (i.e. Viva Voce and Observed Structured Clinical Assessment – OSCE). It is known that barrier examination formats vary widely between medical schools, which raises a number of questions: which examination format is the most accurate at predicting future clinical performance? Which format is most accurate at assessing knowledge and skills? And can students from different universities ever be accurately compared? A brief survey conducted in June and July 2011 by the author collated the details of the Barrier Examinations undertaken at each of Australia’