Assessment of clinical competence of undergraduate medical students.

The assessment is a key determinant of learning by the students. Validity, reliability, objectivity and practicability are the fundamental attributes of assessment. It is important to understand how a given tool of assessment fares on these criteria. The conventional practical clinical examination consisting of "long"/"short" cases lacks objectivity and reliability. It also has a limited validity because sufficient sampling is not possible. Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), on the other hand, is a comprehensive, reliable and objective test, but does not take a holistic view of the patient. Viva-voce often revolves around theory and is highly subjective. Since no single tool of assessment of clinical competence is ideal, a combination of "long"/"short" case (s) with OSCE is suggested as a more rational examination.