EVALUATION OF STUDENTS LEARNING IN AN INTERDISCIPLINARY MEDICINE - SURGERY CLERKSHIP

Purpose. To evaluate the impact of an interdisciplinary medicine-surge ry clerkship (created to foster generalist education) on students' per formances on National Board of Medical Examiners' (NBME) subject exami nations. Method. Test data for the 226 students who participated in th e 16-week combined clerkship and for the 265 students who had complete d the traditional clerkships (12 weeks of medicine, 12 weeks of surger y) were compiled and analyzed using t-tests for independent samples. R esults. Mean scores on the NBME subject examination in medicine increa sed significantly after the combined medicine-surgery clerkship (from 433 to 455, p less than or equal to 0.5). Mean scores on the NBME subj ect examination in surgery were similar to those achieved in the tradi tional clerkship years. Conclusion. Since the medicine and surgery cle rkships were combined into a single, interdisciplinary clerkship, stud ents' scores have increased on the medicine NBME subject examination a nd have remained relatively unchanged on the surgery NBME subject exam ination, despite a substantial reduction in students' clinical experie nce in the combined clerkship from the traditional clerkships (16 vs 2 4 weeks).