Introduction:

The clinical skills learned by students during their training are the main tools for the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of neurological diseases. Assessment is essential in the teaching-learning process. A Structured Objective Clinical Examination (SOCE) is a method for assessing clinical skills that can be used both as summative and formative assessment. It consists of stations that form a circuit. In each station the student faces a scenario that evaluates the clinical skills domain in three areas: cognitive, attitudinal, and psychomotor. Its implementation is helpful in evaluating professional skills of a curriculum with clinical qualities.

Objective:

The objective of this study was to design and pilot an SOCE to assess neurological clinical skills in medical internship students.

Method:

A committee was formed including 12 experts in neurology, who were trained to design an SOCE. A clinical skills specification table was constructed in order to assess clinical cases. This was followed by designing an SOCE with 7 clinical skills that included: history, physical examination, diagnosis, treatment, interpretation of studies, decision making, and prevention. In each test station, its contents and checklists were validated by the review committee. A pilot test was applied to 14 medical internship students. The mean, and overall, Cronbach alpha was obtained for each station.

Results:

An SOCE of 18 stations was designed and pilot tested. A mean of 6.53 was obtained, with an overall Cronbach alpha of 0.62 in the examination.

Conclusions:

An SOCE allows clinical skills to be evaluated in a planned manner. The key elements for design are: the examination committee, table specifications, and design and logistics of the test stations.