Enhancing knowledge and clinical skills through an adolescent medicine workshop.

Objective: To determine the effect of a medical school adolescent medicine workshop on knowledge and clinical skills using standardized patients.

Design: Randomized controlled trial.

Setting: The University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington.

Participants: A total of 186 third-year medical students. Intervention Medical students assigned to the intervention group (n = 95) participated in a 4-hour adolescent medicine workshop using standardized patients to practice interviewing and counseling skills. Medical students assigned to the control group (n = 91) participated in an alternative workshop.

Outcome Measures: Medical student adolescent interviewing and counseling skills were assessed using adolescent standardized patient encounters during the end-of-clerkship examination and during the end of the third-year Clinical Performance Examination. Medical student knowledge was assessed at the end of the clerkship using an open-ended postencounter written exercise and the questions specific to adolescent medicine on the clerkship written examination.

Results: Both groups had comparable baseline characteristics. Medical students in the intervention group scored significantly higher on both measures of clinical skills, the standardized patient stations during the end-of-clerkship examination and the Clinical Performance Examination. Intervention medical students also scored significantly higher on both measures of knowledge, the open-ended postencounter written exercise and the written examination.

Conclusions: A brief adolescent medicine workshop using standardized patients improved medical students' knowledge and skills at the end of a 4-week clerkship, and the improvement in clinical skills persisted at the end of the third year of medical school.