Assessment of knowledge of primary care activities in a sample of medical and chiropractic students.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the influence of chiropractic education on knowledge of primary care tasks. Scores received on a test of knowledge of primary care tasks were compared between 3 samples of chiropractic students and 1 small sample of medical students. DATA SOURCES: The taxonomy of primary care tasks that was previously published provided the basis for test items used in this study. A team of test writers prepared an evaluation instrument that was administered to final-term chiropractic students at 3 colleges and to a small sample of medical students as they were entering their residency programs.
RESULTS: The chiropractic students scored below the medical students on the primary care examination in every area except musculoskeletal conditions. Chiropractic students scored higher than medical students on the musculoskeletal portion of the examination.
CONCLUSIONS: In this sample, chiropractic students performed almost as well as medical students on a test that was designed to measure knowledge of primary care tasks. If the premise is accepted that medical school is the gold standard of primary care instruction, that chiropractic students fared almost as well as medical students is noteworthy.