A Novel USMLE® Step 1 Based Approach to Introducing Radiation Oncology to Second-Year Preclinical Medical Students.

There is a paucity of formalized exposure to Radiation Oncology (RO) for preclinical medical students across the United States as well as barriers to implementation within undergraduate medical education curriculum at many institutions. We present a novel approach to implementing an introductory RO didactic lecture to second-year medical students by interweaving associated oncological and ionizing radiation content represented on the United States Medical Licensing Exam® (USMLE®) Step 1 examination. Students had synchronous and asynchronous opportunities to engage with the 1.0-h didactic lecture administered by an attending Radiation Oncologist faculty member. Students were electronically invited to anonymously rank the effectiveness of the lecture materials on a 5-point Likert scale. Performance on standardized board-style questions regarding radiation biology and radiation side effects was recorded before and after the lecture and compared to the historic performance of previous institutional second-year medical student cohorts. The lecture material effectiveness received a mean score of 4.50 on a 5-point Likert scale. There was a statistically significant improvement in student performance on a board-style radiation side effect question from 39% on a pretest to 76% on a posttest. A USMLE® topic-based approach may be an effective way to implement a formalized introduction to RO to preclinical medical students while simultaneously improving performance on relevant standardized board-style questions. Providing evidence that RO topics appear on the USMLE® Step 1 examination curriculum was a powerful incentive for implementation when negotiating with curriculum offices.

Using the EPAs to Evaluate the Clinical Experience of Medical Students.

Introduction: Although there are standardized assessments of medical students throughout medical school, the clinical experience of each student may vary widely. Currently, medical schools do not have a systematic method to ensure that students perform clinical skills during clinical clerkships. Our study used the Entrustable Professional Activities for Entering Residency (EPAs) framework to assess the ways in which medical students meaningfully participate in patient care at various clinical sites in each required clerkship and over time. Methods: Over the 2020-2021 academic year, 170 third-year medical students were asked to report the number of times they performed EPA-1 (gather history and perform physical examination), EPA-5 (document clinical encounter), and EPA-6 (provide oral presentation of clinical encounter) at the end of each required clinical rotation (emergency medicine, internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics, neurology, psychiatry) at a single medical school. We used descriptive statistics and t tests to compare frequency of these EPAs by campus type, site type, clerkship, and time. Results: One thousand, two hundred sixty-one surveys met inclusion criteria. Students performed EPA-5 more often at an academic medical center, and EPA-1 more frequently in the outpatient setting. Students performed EPA-1 and EPA-6 most often during emergency medicine and EPA-5 most often during internal medicine. Performance of all three EPAs increased over time. Conclusion: This reporting system produced a robust data set that allowed for EPA performance comparisons by campus, site type, clerkship, and time. EPA performance varied by rotation, site type, clerkship, and time.