INTRODUCTION AND UTILITY OF MINI CLINICAL EVALUATION EXERCISE TOOL AS A FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT TOOL TO THE POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS OF MEDICINE DEPARTMENT

Introduction: Assessment of a student’s actual performance in the wards or in the consulting rooms poses a real challenge for teachers. Assessment should balance both the issues of validity and reliability. Many of the assessment methods are variations on the traditional bedside oral examination which is time consuming and where no feedback is given to the students regarding their performance or the mistakes they have created. With the hypothesis that this formative assessment tool at workplace based area will improve the clinical competency of the residents we plan to introduce the Mini Clinical Evaluation Exercise tool for the formative assessment of the residents of the medicine department to improve their learning.

Aim: To see the utility of the Mini Clinical evaluation exercise tool for the formative assessment of the postgraduate students of the medicine department.

Methodology: All the postgraduate students along with the consultants who were the assessor to the residents were sensitized with the Mini CEX tool. Mini CEX is the direct observation assessment or “snapshot” of a trainee-patient interaction which observes the 7 domain of the resident at the work place. The students underwent 6 encounters. The rating of the students performance under different domain was done and analyzed. The retro pre analysis feedback from the assessors and the students was also taken.

Results: In our study we have seen that mini clinical evaluation exercise is one of the best formative assessment tools which can improve the clinical competency. Over the encounters, the improvement in history taking skills, physical examination and reaching to the probable diagnosis was seen. The feedback given by the assessor and the students agreed that this tool can be used for formative assessment as it is very structured and immediate feedback given to the student is the real boon of this tool.