gms | German Medical Science

Objective: Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) represent an increasingly employed approach to assess medical students’ performance in the workplace. This study analyses the readiness of medical students for entry into the final clerkship year based on the EPA concept to inform students and the program directors.

Methods: In 2019, 695 medical students from the competency-based undergraduate program of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin were surveyed online before the start of their final clerkship year. They were asked to indicate the level of supervision under which they are able to perform a set of 35 EPAs. The EPAs were based on the locally developed set of undergraduate Core EPAs [1]. The 7 level supervision scale ranged from not able to carry out to able to carry out unsupervised. It was expected that students starting their final clerkship are minimally able to perform the defined EPAs without direct supervision.

Results: A total of 124 students (75% female, 25% male) with an average of 26 years (SD=4 years) completed the survey. The majority of the students (50%) indicated to carry out the task without direct supervision for all 35 EPAs. Good readiness was seen for taking patient history, performing physical examination, reporting a patient history of medical procedures such as drawing blood. Relevant gaps were reported in EPAs such as compile and implement a treatment plan, preparing and filing orders and recognizing an emergency situation and act upon it. Participating students received their individual results in comparison to all participation students. Curriculum directors and managers received the summarized, non-individual results of all study participants.

Discussion: The EPA concept offers an easy to apply approach and tangible results on the readiness of medical students for the entry into the final clerkship year. The results provide students with individual feedback on strengths and gaps as well as the program directors of strengths and gaps of their undergraduate medical curriculum.

Take home message: EPAs can help to gain an insight in medical students’ readiness before entering the final clerkship year and are a tangible way to identify gaps in a medical program.