“Fit for the finals” – project report on a telemedical training with simulated patients, peers, and assessors for the licensing exam

BACKGROUND: Undergraduate medical students take the licensing exam (M3) as a two-day oral-practical examination. The main requirements are to demonstrate history taking skills and coherent case presentations. The aim of this project was to establish a training in which students can test their communication skills during history taking and their clinical reasoning skills in focused case presentations.

METHODS: In the newly developed training, final-year students took four telemedical histories in the role of physicians from simulated patients (SP). They received further findings for two SPs and presented these in a handover, in which they also received a handover of two SPs which they had not seen themselves. Each student presented one of the two received SPs in a case discussion with a senior physician. Feedback was given to the participants on their communication and interpersonal skills by the SPs with the ComCare questionnaire and on the case presentation by the senior physician. Sixty-two students from the universities of Hamburg and Freiburg in their final year participated in September 2022 and evaluated the training.

RESULTS: Participants felt that the training was very appropriate for exam preparation. The SPs' feedback on communication and the senior physician's feedback on clinical reasoning skills received the highest ratings in importance to the students. Participants highly valued the practice opportunity for structured history taking and case presentation and would like to have more such opportunities in the curriculum.

CONCLUSION: Essential elements of the medical licensing exam can be represented, including feedback, in this telemedical training and it can be offered independent of location.