Why?

Workplace-based learning in clinical rounds constitutes a large part of the medical curriculum. Here students develop knowledge, skills and attitudes through supervised practice in real clinical situations. However, many studies show that students are rarely observed, assessed and given feedback on their performance. 

How?

The Mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise (Mini-CEX) is a workplace based assessment tool used to evaluate and give feedback to students and doctors when working with patients. Initially developed for specialist training in the U.S., the Mini-CEX is designed around skills that residents most often need in real patient encounters. A Mini-CEX is meant to take around 20-25 minutes so that several sessions can be performed over a short period of time. 

What we are working on

We want to investigate the educational impact of, and student satisfaction with, formative assessment and feedback using the Mini-CEX. We will compare two groups of students in their clinical rounds during their 5th year of study. One group will complete 8-12 Mini-CEXs during the term, and the other group will act as a control group which follows current practice for supervision and feedback. The impact will be measured with a written test, an oral practical test and a survey about satisfaction and experienced educational impact.