Development, testing and generalizability of a standardized evaluation form for the assessment of patient-directed reports in the new final medical licensing examination in Germany.

As doctors often fail to explain diagnoses and therapies to patients in an understandable and appropriate way, the improvement of doctor-patient communication is essential. The current medical training and examinations are focused on verbal rather than on written communication. Following the premise of "assessment drives learning", the final medical licensing examination in Germany has been further developed by the German National Institute for state examinations in Medicine, Pharmacy and Psychotherapy (IMPP).

Emotion recognition and extraversion of medical students interact to predict their empathic communication perceived by simulated patients.

Background: This study assessed the impact of medical students' emotion recognition ability and extraversion on their empathic communication, as perceived by simulated patients in a training context.

Methods: This study used a crossed-effect data structure and examined 245 students in their fourth year of medical school. The students' personality traits were assessed based on a self-assessment questionnaire of the short form of the Big Five Inventory; their emotion recognition ability was measured using a performance test (Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2, Adult Facial Expressions).

Effects and Consequences of Being an OSCE Examiner in Surgery-A Qualitative Study.

Objective: Even though objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) is a well-investigated format for competency-based practical examination, only a few studies have explored the motivations of OSCE examiners and their opinions, both positive and negative, toward being an examiner. The aim of this study was to gain insights into the views of OSCE examiners using semi-structured interviews.

Design: Surgical OSCE examiners were queried at two medical faculties in Germany via semi-structured interviews.

Do they teach what they need to? An analysis of the impact of curriculum mapping on the learning objectives taught in a lecture series in surgery.

Curriculum mapping shows concordances and differences between the intended and the taught curriculum. To our knowledge, no previous studies describe the effects that this mapping has on the curriculum. The aim of the present study is to map the content of a lecture series in surgery to the National Catalogue of Learning Objectives in Surgery and analyze the effects this mapping has on the content of the following lecture series.

Undergraduate medical students need more training in craniomaxillofacial surgery: a comparative study between medical and dental students.

Purpose: To compare the performance in oral, craniomaxillofacial, and facial plastic surgery (CMF)-specific surgical skills between medical students (MS) and dental students (DS) and hence adjust the current CMF training to student-specific needs. The investigators hypothesized that there would be no performance differences between MS and DS.

Methods: The investigators implemented a comparative retrospective item-based analysis of student performance in a CMF-specific objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) from 2008 to 2015.

Examiner effect on the objective structured clinical exam - a study at five medical schools.

Background: The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is increasingly used at medical schools to assess practical competencies. To compare the outcomes of students at different medical schools, we introduced standardized OSCE stations with identical checklists.

Methods: We investigated examiner bias at standardized OSCE stations for knee- and shoulder-joint examinations, which were implemented into the surgical OSCE at five different medical schools.

Conveying practical clinical skills with the help of teaching associates-a randomised trial with focus on the long term learning retention.

Background: Ensuring that all medical students achieve adequate clinical skills remains a challenge, yet the correct performance of clinical skills is critical for all fields of medicine. This study analyzes the influence of receiving feedback by teaching associates in the context of achieving and maintaining a level of expertise in complex head and skull examination.

Methods: All third year students at a German university who completed the obligatory surgical skills lab training and surgical clerkship participated in this study.

Structured evaluation and need-based restructuring of the cranio-maxillofacial surgery module within surgical clerkship.

Background: Evaluations are important for teaching courses and contribute to educational quality assurance. CMF surgery provides a module in the skills-lab week in preparation for surgical clerkship. Even though the CMF module receives positive evaluations, the students report deviating content.

The effect of written standardized feedback on the structure and quality of surgical lectures: A prospective cohort study.

Background: Lectures remain an important teaching method to present and structure knowledge to many students concurrently. Adequate measures are necessary to maintain the quality of the lectures. The aim of this study was to determine the impact on the lecture quality using written structured feedback and to compare the ratings of surgical lectures between students and surgical peers.