Computers in medical education 3: a possible tool for the assessment of clinical competence?

BackgroundComputers and other forms of information technology are increasingly used in medical education. We undertook a study to evaluate the place of the computer in the assessment of clinical skills of junior medical students.MethodsThe history taking and physical examination skills of 136 third-year students were assessed in a series of structured and observed clinical stations and compared to their performance in similar computer-based problems.ResultsStudents scored equally on the computer-based tasks and in the observed stations, but the weaker students who failed one or another component of the examination were more likely to pass at a clinical station and fail the computer task.ConclusionsThis study has shown that computer-based clinical simulations can be constructed to supplement conventional assessment processes in clinical medicine and may have a role in increasing their reliability