A comprehensive test of clinical reasoning for medical students: An olympiad experience in Iran

Script concordance tests: A call for action in dental education

The Script Concordance Test (SCT) is an educational tool that aims to assess the ability to interpret medical information under conditions of uncertainty. It is widely used and validated in health education, but almost unknown in dentistry. Based on authentic clinical problem-solving situations, it allows to assess clinical reasoning that experienced health workers develop over the years. A specific scoring system, dedicated to SCT, considers the variability of responses of practitioners in the same clinical situations. Finally, the scores generated by SCT reflect the respondents' ability to interpret clinical data compared to experienced clinicians. This article aims to familiarise the dental educators' community with SCT construction, optimisation and its possible applications.

The eleventh scientific Olympiad of Iranian medical students: Challenges and solutions

BACKGROUND

The scientific Olympiad is an event that creates a competitive environment for student groups of medical universities across the country to solve problems that can help improve the health system. This study aims to explain the issues of the scientific Olympiad program of Iranian medical students.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This study was conducted using content analysis method, and the data were collected through 21 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with experts from December 2018 to April 2020. Participants were selected using purposive sampling methods. Twenty-one students, domain leaders, question designers, Olympiad executive experts, and teachers (11 males and 10 females) participated in the interviews. Data analysis was performed based on the steps of Graneheim and Lundman's method. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and subjected to a qualitative analysis by MAXQDA 2018 software.

RESULTS

From the analysis of data, four themes, including inattention to context, inattention to input, inattention to process, and inattention to output, emerged.

CONCLUSIONS

The scientific Olympiad can lead to interuniversity scientific exchanges and paves the way for the promotion of education and evaluation of learners in medical universities, but if not correctly implemented and the problems of previous periods are not solved, it will not help the health system and can impose considerable costs on the system.

Puzzle test: A tool for non-analytical clinical reasoning assessment

Most contemporary clinical reasoning tests typically assess non-automatic thinking. Therefore, a test is needed to measure automatic reasoning or pattern recognition, which has been largely neglected in clinical reasoning tests. The Puzzle Test (PT) is dedicated to assess automatic clinical reasoning in routine situations. This test has been introduced first in 2009 by Monajemi et al in the Olympiad for Medical Sciences Students.PT is an item format that has gained acceptance in medical education, but no detailed guidelines exist for this test's format, construction and scoring. In this article, a format is described and the steps to prepare and administer valid and reliable PTs are presented. PT examines a specific clinical reasoning task: Pattern recognition. PT does not replace other clinical reasoning assessment tools. However, it complements them in strategies for assessing comprehensive clinical reasoning.

The role of student surgical interest groups and surgical Olympiads in anatomical and surgical undergraduate training in Russia

Traditional department-based surgical interest groups in Russian medical schools are useful tools for student-based selection of specialty training. They also form a nucleus for initiating research activities among undergraduate students. In Russia, the Departments of Topographical Anatomy and Operative Surgery play an important role in initiating student-led research and providing learners with advanced, practical surgical skills. In tandem with department-led activities, student surgical interest groups prepare learners through surgical competitions, known as "Surgical Olympiads," which have been conducted in many Russian centers on a regular basis since 1988. Surgical Olympiads stimulate student interest in the development of surgical skills before graduation and encourage students to choose surgery as their postgraduate specialty. Many of the participants in these surgical Olympiads have become highly qualified specialists in general surgery, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, urology, gynecology, and emergency medicine. The present article emphasizes the role of student interest groups and surgical Olympiads in clinical anatomical and surgical undergraduate training in Russia.

Clinical reasoning assessment through medical expertise theories: past, present and future directions

Exploration into the concept of "medical expert" dates back to more than 50 years ago, yet yielding three leading theories in the area of clinical reasoning, namely, knowledge structure, hypotheticdeductive, and dual process. Each theory defines "medical expert" in a dissimilar way. Therefore, the methods of assessment through which the experts are identified have been changed during the time. In this paper, we tried to categorize and introduce some widely used tests for identification of experts within the framework of existing main theories. Implementation of the proposed categorization for providing future assessment tools is discussed.