Fozia Umber Qureshi, Shaherzad Sohail, Lubna Riaz Dar.
Comparison of standardized, structured clinical case examination and traditional long-case examination for assessment of final-year medical students: a non-randomized control trial.
Biomedica Jan ;38(2):77-82.

Background and Objective: To improve the reliability and validity of assessment methods, it is always required to revisit older modalities and introduce new ways to promote students’ engagement and learning. The objective of this study was to compare standardized, structured clinical case and traditional long-case examination systems for the evaluation of clinical competency of final-year medical students. Methods: A non-randomized control study was conducted at the Department of Obstetrics (Obs) and Gynecology (Gyne), Shalamar Medical and Dental College, Lahore, Pakistan, from January 2021 to 2022. All the final-year MBBS students were assessed by standardized, structured clinical case examination at the end of the clinical rotation of Gyne/Obs. Their scores were compared with the scores of previous year students who were examined by traditional long case at the end of the clinical rotation in the same discipline. The perceptions of students and examiners were also obtained by using the predesigned questionnaire using the Likert scale. Results: The mean scores obtained by the students assessed by traditional long case structured long case were 64.3 and 69.2, respectively (p = 0.001). An overall positive perception for structured long-case examination by students and examiners were seen in comparison to the traditional long-case method of assessment. Conclusion: The standardized, structured clinical case evaluation system is better than the traditional long-case examination as it helps in identifying areas of weakness and covers a wide range of clinical skills to be assessed. However, time management for each station remains a challenge for both examiners and students.

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