Assuring the quality of high-stakes undergraduate assessments of clinical competence.

In the UK, and in many Commonwealth countries, a university degree is accepted by registration bodies as an indication of competence to practice as a PRHO or intern. Concerns have been raised that the quality of university examinations may not always be sufficient for such high-stakes decision-making. Assessments of clinical competence are subject to many potential sources of error.

Discovering professionalism through guided reflection.

Doctors need to identify and understand the professional behaviours of both themselves and others. In order for students to think critically about these issues we encouraged them to use the tenets of the General Medical Council's Duties of a Doctor as a framework in which to reflect on the actions of healthcare professionals at work. Although the critical incident technique is a well-known process for encouraging reflection, little is known about its usefulness for assessment purposes in this setting.

Student-selected components in the undergraduate medical curriculum: a multi-institutional consensus on assessable key tasks.

This paper describes further progress by the Northern Universities SSC Consortium in achieving consensus on the contribution of the Student Selected Components (SSCs) to undergraduate medical courses. Following the identification of common purposes and outcomes, the group has matched these to assessable key tasks which students may undertake in order to demonstrate competence on a range of attributes not normally fully assessed in the core curriculum. In some schools, SSCs may be the predominant route through which students gain exposure to research methods and reflective practice.

The introduction of large class problem-based learning into an undergraduate medical curriculum: an evaluation.

When considering implementing integrated curriculum models, such as problem-based learning (PBL), concerns may be expressed about the need for increased staff resources required to deliver tutor-led small group PBL. Less staff intensive ways of supporting PBL need to be explored. We compared the outcomes of a PBL module conducted in a large class format within a lecture theatre with a module having the same defined learning outcomes delivered in small group PBL format, both supported by e-learning resources.