Background: Skills labs provide a sheltered learning environment. As close supervision and individual feedback were proven to be important in ensuring effective skills training, we implemented a cross-year peer tutor system in our skills lab of internal medicine that allowed intense training sessions with small learning groups (3-4 students) taught by one student tutor.

Final year students' ward round skills appear to be insufficient with a central deficit in reviewing charts and initiating appropriate prescriptions and documentation. Ward round training which eases the transition from observing ward rounds to conducting them on one's own is urgently required.

Introducing role-plays enhances the realism of technical skills training and leads to better patient-physician communication. Students do not seem to be overstrained by practising clinical technical skills using role-plays. We conclude that role-playing is a valuable method in practising technical skills.

Ward round training with standardized patients is greatly appreciated by final year students and is viewed as an important part of their education, easing the transition from observing ward rounds to conducting them on their own.

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Clerkships are generally seen as a very favourable learning environment for final-year students. However, in recent years the clinical experience of final-year students has been reported to decline progressively. It was decided, therefore, to introduce an innovative skills training model in internal medicine. Sixty final-year students received four consecutive days of training during their first week, consisting of three-hour sessions on each day. The skills training course reflected a patient history from admission to discharge and included all required routine procedures, typical forms/files and computer interactions. Acceptability was measured with self-administered surveys post-intervention and again 16 weeks later; self-assessment was measured pre-/post-intervention. The skills training course was well accepted by the students and led to a significant improvement in self-assessment. It was considered to be very helpful for work on the wards in both the immediate and the long-term retrospective evaluation. The final-year skills training course allows students to learn how to handle specific tools and applications for their work on the ward. It possesses face validity and is easy to integrate.

Background: The final year of medical education is considered crucial in making students 'fit for purpose'. Studies have shown that many students leave medical school without having experienced sufficient preparation for their upcoming professional life. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a supplementary internal medicine final year curriculum on clinical reasoning skills. Method: Final year internal medicine students from two universities participated in the study which was based on a static-group design. The experimental group (n ¼ 49) took part in a final year student curriculum with interactive case-based seminars and skills training sessions. The comparison group (n ¼ 25) did not receive any additional training beyond working on the ward. Clinical reasoning skills were assessed using a key-feature pre-post test.Results: Prior to their clinical rotation, the two groups did not differ in the key-feature examination ( p50.924). The experimental group performed significantly better than the comparison group ( p50.028) in the post-intervention key-feature examination. Conclusions: Supplementary interactive case-based seminars and skills training sessions are effective and significantly improve the clinical reasoning skills of final year students in internal medicine. Further study is warranted and should look to examine the effectiveness of a final year student curriculum on other performance measures.

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