The procedural and interpretive skills that third-year medicine clerks should master: views of medicine clerkship directors.

The authors surveyed medicine clerkship directors to determine which procedural and interpretive skills they felt third-year medical students should acquire. Of the 101 (81%) who responded, 91 felt that specific procedural and interpretive skills should be achieved by the end of the third-year medicine clerkship. Twenty-seven percent of these 91 reported having students keep a record of their activities; 35% reported testing students in the interpretation of various tests used in the evaluation of hospitalized patients on medicine services; and one clerkship director reported that his students were tested in their abilities to perform procedures. There was substantial disagreement by medicine clerkship directors over the procedural and test/study-interpretation skills in which medicine clerks should become proficient during the third-year medicine clerkship.