A core competence-based objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) in evaluation of clinical performance of postgraduate year-1 (PGY1) residents

Background: Clinical competency certifications are important parts of internal medicine residency training. This study aims to evaluate a composite objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) that assesses postgraduate year-1 (PGY(1)) residents' acquisition of the six core competencies defined by the Accreditation council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Methods: Six-core-competency-based OSCE was used as examination of the clinical performance of 192 PGY(1), residents during their 3-month internal medicine training between 2007 January and 2009 December. For each year, the reliability of the entire examination was calculated with Cronbach's alpha. Results: The reliability of six-core-competency-based OSCE was acceptable, ranging from 0.69 to 0.87 between 2007 and 2009. In comparison with baseline scores, the summary scores and core-competency subscores all showed significant increase after PGY(1) residents finished their 3-month internal medicine training program. Conclusion: By using a structured development process, the authors were able to create reliable evaluation items for determining PGY(1) residents' acquisition of the ACGME core competencies. Copyright (C) 2011 Elsevier Taiwan LLC and the Chinese Medical Association. All rights reserved.