Evaluation of students' physical examination skills during their surgery clerkship.

Background: Faculty often presume that students possess adequate physical examination skills upon graduation. Yet assessments of their performance with these skills often reveal deficiencies. This study was designed to determine if students' physical examination skills improved during their clerkship year.

Methods: Sixty-six students performed four specific physical examinations on patients during the first and last week of their surgery clerkship. Four consecutive clerkship rotations were examined. Encounters were videotaped and evaluated by faculty members.

Results: Posttest mean percent correct scores significantly improved for three examinations (P <0.01). Analysis of variance found no significant differences between clerkship mean percent correct scores.

Conclusions: Students' physical examination skills improved slightly during their clerkship, however, no relationship was found between clerkship rotation and performance. These findings suggest unsupervised experiences during the third year do not positively influence student performance with physical examination skill proficiency.