During the clerkships, medical students learn to conduct interviews and physical examinations with real patients in a clinical setting. This dissertation describes which physical examination students should conduct and how they actually perform, and which factors play a major role in learning the physical examination in daily practice. During history taking, a student must already think about the diagnosis that a patient could have. This dissertation describes how you can tell when observing such a conversation that this clinical reasoning is actually taking place. When testing a score list based on this research it turned out that you need to have at least six assessors to a assess one consultation in order to be able to make a reliable statement about it.
Catharina M. Haring completed her training as an internist at the Radboud University Medical Center by the end of 2010. Since then she has been involved in research of training and assessment of basic skills during the clerkships. She currently works as an internist-nephrologist and student coordinator at the hospital in Deventer.