•Evaluation of Long Case Examination Utilized for Assessing Clinical Competence of the Final Year -- Students in the Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University

Abstract

evaluation of clinical competence. They play a very important role in the certification of candidates before they are allowed to practice medicine. It was aimed through this study to evaluate and help upgrade the Long Case Examination used for assessing the clinical competences of final year students in the Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, in the academic year 2004-2005. Among the approaches described for program evaluation, the approach used in this descriptive study was Process-Based Evaluation approach. The target groups were all the final year students (164 students), examiners assigned to assess the target students (44 examiners) and patients on whom the examination was carried out (44 patients). Three types of data collection methods were used in this study, self administered questionnaires for the students•and the examiners, interviews with the patients and documents review. Through the target groups' perspectives and documents review, the study resulted in an agreement among the majority of students (58%) and the minority of examiners (21%) that the examination settings were carried out at the examiners offices. There was a considerable agreement that LCE lack fairness (81% of students), reliability (43.2% of the examiners) although it shows a respectable level of validity (77.2%). Regarding lack of observation of the students during history taking and doing physical examinations, 82.1% of the students and 36.4% of the examiners agreed with that.