FACULTY SENSITIVITY IN DETECTING MEDICAL-STUDENTS CLINICAL COMPETENCE

The purpose of this study was to determine the sensitivity of subjecti ve faculty evaluations (1) in detecting the levels of clinical compete nce exhibited by third-year medical students in a junior clerkship and (2) in correlating with objective measures of the students' performan ce. Forty-eight third-year medical students were evaluated during the course of a 10-week surgery clerkship. Each student was subjectively e valuated by four surgery faculty members and by a number of objective measures. Unlike the subjective evaluations, the objective testing cle arly demonstrated students' deficiencies. None of the seven students i dentified as underachieving by the battery of objective tests was iden tified as deficient by any of the faculty evaluators. The subjective s cores in this study did not correlate highly with objective tests of e ither knowledge or performance. Reliance on subjective clinical evalua tions as the sole measure of clinical ability is clearly not warranted . To better define clinical competence in the medical student and resi dent population, we must de-emphasize subjective faculty evaluations a nd place greater importance on objective tests.