The authors report their findings concerning the process used to evaluate medicine clerks, specifically identifying the importance given to subjective evaluations, made by attending physicians, compared with the importance given to clerks' performances on objective means of evaluation based on written or oral examinations, whether national or…

In standardized patient-based tests of clinical competence, patients are used to present the clinical problem and to rate the actions taken by the student. This approach is evaluated by a microanalysis of 1 case used in a fourth year clinical examination of 98 medical students at the University of Manitoba. (MLW)

Students from two medicine rotations were assigned to experimental and control groups. Instruction was the same except that the control group was assigned required readings. The groups were compared in terms of their performances on a final written examination and on the National Board of Medical Examiners Part II examination. (Author/MLW)

Faculty from 5 New England medical schools developed 36 patient cases representing a variety of common ambulatory-care problems. Students were tested by interacting with 16 different standardized patients, who were nonphysicians trained to accurately and consistently portray a patient in a simulated clinical setting. (Author/MLW)

The Technological Innovations in Medical Education (TIME) model, designed to be controlled by a professor in the classroom, incorporates voice recognition technology and video dramatization to create a believable patient encounter. A field test finding was that the students became committed to the care and management of the simulated patient.…