Why Doesnt Yale Have SHELF Exams During Clerkships
March 22, 2023ID9712
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- 00:05OA Shelf Exam is an exam that probably 95%
- 00:09of medical schools use to evaluate students
- 00:11at the end of their clerkship blocks.
- 00:14And these shelf exams are primarily
- 00:17knowledge exams and not scale exams.
- 00:19And we decided that shelf exams were
- 00:21not an appropriate mechanism for
- 00:23learning in our clinical environment.
- 00:26One of the things I think that's
- 00:28very important is the focus on.
- 00:31Students learning what they need to do in
- 00:33developing as physicians in their own pace,
- 00:35not in an atmosphere driven by high
- 00:37stakes exams and tests, by giving
- 00:39exams in the middle of clinical experiences,
- 00:41we actually are taking students away from
- 00:43the care of their patients. Because of
- 00:45that. You get into this
- 00:47philosophy of saying like hey,
- 00:48this seems to be a really common concern
- 00:51among patients and I want to learn
- 00:53more about it as opposed to saying,
- 00:55hey, this is something that's
- 00:56impacting my patients,
- 00:57but it doesn't show up on the shelf exam,
- 01:00so I don't care.
- 01:01Right now, that means that we feel
- 01:03OK spending more time in the wards,
- 01:05and we don't feel like we have to rush home
- 01:08and study first thing. But there
- 01:10isn't competition between classmates.
- 01:11When we come back from any clerkship day,
- 01:13we're able to get together and really
- 01:16teach each other clinical pearls
- 01:18and help each other succeed. So
- 01:20we decided that we would have a lower
- 01:24stakes exam at the end of every clerkship.
- 01:27These are not anything but pass
- 01:29fail because we're really looking
- 01:31at them to develop them as
- 01:33clinicians interacting with patients
- 01:35and those valuable clerkship years.
- 01:37There are ample abilities to do
- 01:40self-assessment to work with physicians
- 01:42to tackle specifically what your areas
- 01:44of weakness are and encourage people to
- 01:47seek feedback often as we go through.
- 01:50Our life and our training,
- 01:51we're going to need to take
- 01:53ownership of our own learning for
- 01:55ourselves and for our patients.
- 01:57It is something that is
- 01:59more important than grades.