Implementation of the Mini-CEX to Evaluate Medical Studentsʼ Clinical Skills

Abstract

Booklets were received from 32 students. The mean number of evaluations completed per student was 7.3 (range 2-9), for a total of 232 evaluations. Faculty completed 58% of the evaluations; 68% were from the inpatient setting. The observation and feedback took an average of 21 minutes and 8 minutes, respectively. Satisfaction with the exercise was rated by faculty/residents as 7.2 and by students as 6.8. We believe these findings support the feasibility of collecting multiple mini-CEX assessments from both inpatient and outpatient sites using faculty and resident evaluators. The feasibility of collecting multiple assessments is important if the mini-CEX is to be a reproducible assessment of clinical skills. Having established feasibility, we plan to look at the reproducibility and validity of mini-CEX scores in order to determine if it can be used as a formal means of clinical skills assessment. We also plan to evaluate the impact on the quality and specificity of end-of-clerkship summative ratings.