Why Doesnt Yale Have SHELF Exams During Clerkships

Transcript

• 00:05OA Shelf Exam is an exam that probably 95%
• 00:09of medical schools use to evaluate students
• 00:11at the end of their clerkship blocks.
• 00:14And these shelf exams are primarily
• 00:17knowledge exams and not scale exams.
• 00:19And we decided that shelf exams were
• 00:21not an appropriate mechanism for
• 00:23learning in our clinical environment.
• 00:26One of the things I think that's
• 00:28very important is the focus on.
• 00:31Students learning what they need to do in
• 00:33developing as physicians in their own pace,
• 00:35not in an atmosphere driven by high
• 00:37stakes exams and tests, by giving
• 00:39exams in the middle of clinical experiences,
• 00:41we actually are taking students away from
• 00:43the care of their patients. Because of
• 00:45that. You get into this
• 00:47philosophy of saying like hey,
• 00:48this seems to be a really common concern
• 00:51among patients and I want to learn
• 00:53more about it as opposed to saying,
• 00:55hey, this is something that's
• 00:56impacting my patients,
• 00:57but it doesn't show up on the shelf exam,
• 01:00so I don't care.
• 01:01Right now, that means that we feel
• 01:03OK spending more time in the wards,
• 01:05and we don't feel like we have to rush home
• 01:08and study first thing. But there
• 01:10isn't competition between classmates.
• 01:11When we come back from any clerkship day,
• 01:13we're able to get together and really
• 01:16teach each other clinical pearls
• 01:18and help each other succeed. So
• 01:20we decided that we would have a lower
• 01:24stakes exam at the end of every clerkship.
• 01:27These are not anything but pass
• 01:29fail because we're really looking
• 01:31at them to develop them as
• 01:33clinicians interacting with patients
• 01:35and those valuable clerkship years.
• 01:37There are ample abilities to do
• 01:40self-assessment to work with physicians
• 01:42to tackle specifically what your areas
• 01:44of weakness are and encourage people to
• 01:47seek feedback often as we go through.
• 01:50Our life and our training,
• 01:51we're going to need to take
• 01:53ownership of our own learning for
• 01:55ourselves and for our patients.
• 01:57It is something that is
• 01:59more important than grades.