Progress testing in family medicine--A novel use for simulated office oral exams.

BACKGROUND

Simulated office orals (SOOs) are used by the College of Family Physicians of Canada as a method to evaluate family medicine resident readiness for clinical practice. The use of SOOs as a progress test would provide residency programs with useful information to determine resident readiness for challenging the certification exam. The data from a progress test could then be easily manipulated to generate a risk assessment plot.

METHODS

During a prospective cohort study conducted at the University of Ottawa, the feasibility of using practice SOO sessions, a structured clinical exam, as a progress test was explored. Twenty-three residents participated in all four practice SOO sessions and their results were entered into a risk assessment plot.

RESULTS

Repeated measures analysis of the data using ANOVA demonstrated that the residents' scores at each time point were statistically different from each other, generating an F(3, 66) = 27.52, p < 0.001, η(2) = 0.55.and that the relationship over time was linear with an F(1, 22) = 123.80, p < 0.001, η(2) = 0.85. At the final time point, a risk assessment resulted in no learners mapping to quadrants III or IV.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing a SOO exam, a clinical exam, as a progress test. In addition, we propose generating a risk assessment plot, using the data from the Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 practice SOO sessions, as a means of identifying residents at risk. Further studies will be needed to confirm the utility of this analysis. Combined with other measures acquired during in-training evaluation, the utilization of practice SOOs as a progress test will provide program directors with valuable information on resident progression.