Practice-oriented evaluation of medical students during a pediatric course

Examinations should be motivating, inspiring and interesting for students and evaluation should be an essential pan of learning. The evaluation is optimal when it is as practical and patient related as possible, To meet these criteria, we have developed examinations that are practice related by using case problem as questions in written examination and by presenting case problems with slides as an examination. Our aim has been to teach students to seek out knowledge from the literature by allowing the use of a textbook in solving problem cases in the examination. In order to teach consultation skills in some case problems, students have to write a referral. Furthermore, feedback on the examinations has developed to teach consultation skills by using peer evaluation and peer learning in the feedback. According to principles of objective structured clinical examination, we have developed an exam where the students are evaluated when they are examining real patients in a pediatric ward. The assessment of clinical skills is performed during the patient examination by using a structured evaluation form, and also during personal discussion with the student after the examination. Since the feedback from our students has been encouraging we describe our evaluation scheme in detail.