Identifying the unauthorized use of examination material.

Item disclosure is one of the most serious threats to the validity of high stakes examinations, and identifying examinees that may have had unauthorized access to material is an important step in ensuring the integrity of an examination. A procedure was developed to identify examinees that potentially had unauthorized prior access to examination content. A standardized difference score is created by comparing examinee ability estimates for potentially exposed items to ability estimates for unexposed items.

Doctor scores on national qualifying examinations predict quality of care in future practice.

Objectives: This study aimed to determine if national licensing examinations that measure medical knowledge (QE1) and clinical skills (QE2) predict the quality of care delivered by doctors in future practice.

Methods: Cohorts of doctors who took the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examinations Part I (QE1) and Part II (QE2) between 1993 and 1996 and subsequently entered practice in Ontario, Canada (n = 2420) were followed for their first 7-10 years in practice. The 208 of these doctors who were randomly selected for peer assessment of quality of care were studied.

Physician scores on a national clinical skills examination as predictors of complaints to medical regulatory authorities.

Context: Poor patient-physician communication increases the risk of patient complaints and malpractice claims. To address this problem, licensure assessment has been reformed in Canada and the United States, including a national standardized assessment of patient-physician communication and clinical history taking and examination skills.

Objective: To assess whether patient-physician communication examination scores in the clinical skills examination predicted future complaints in medical practice.

A study of a multi-source feedback system for international medical graduates holding defined licences.

Objective: To develop and assess the feasibility and psychometric properties of multi-source feedback questionnaires to monitor international medical graduates practising in Canada under 'defined' licences.

Method: Four questionnaires (patient, co-worker, colleague and self) were developed and administered in 2 phases through paper-based and telephone or Internet formats. Reliability was assessed with Cronbach's alpha and generalisability coefficient analyses.

A comparison of physician examiners and trained assessors in a high-stakes OSCE setting.

Background: The Medical Council of Canada (MCC) administers an objective structured clinical examination for licensure. Traditionally, physician examiners (PE) have evaluated these examinees. Recruitment of physicians is becoming more difficult.

A sequenced OSCE for licensure: administrative issues, results and myths.

In response to stakeholder demands for a more cost-effective clinical examination, the Medical Council of Canada adopted a sequenced format for the OSCE component of its licensure examination. The sequenced OSCE was administered in 1997 at 14 sites and assessed 1,796 test takers. The 10-station screening test had an alpha = 0.

A novel piezo-optical styrene sensor incorporating polymer-supported tribromide ion.

Encapsulation of Amberlyst A-26 supported tribromide in a 10,000 MW polyethylene glycol matrix gives a robust colour-sensitive reagent matrix which can be deposited on indium-tin oxide coated polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) piezoelectric film for the detection of styrene (and other alkene) vapours.

Using the Judgments of Physician Examiners in Setting the Standards for a National Multi-center High Stakes OSCE.

In 1994 and 1995, the Medical Council of Canada used an innovative approach to set the pass mark on its large scale, multi-center national OSCE which is designed to assess basic clinical and communication skills in physicians in Canada after 15 months of post-graduate medical training. The goal of this article is to describe the new approach and to present the experience with the method during its first two years of operation. The approach utilizes the global judgments of the physician examiners at each station to identify the candidates with borderline performances.