Influence of clerkship structure and timing on individual student performance.

Student oral and written surgical clerkship performances may be related to the clerkship structure and the time of year the students rotate through the clerkship. The influence of calendar block, hospital site (university hospital, affiliated private tertiary-care hospital, and rural preceptor experience), and the mix of general surgical versus subspeciality rotations on oral and written student surgery clerkship scores was analyzed. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant differences in score for calendar block (p = 0.02) only; this difference resided in the written examination. The various combinations of rotations were not different from one another in terms of measured outcome.