Effects of educational activities in externship course on history taking and patient presentation skills

Aim: Patient presentation skill is a core clinical skill in externship clinical education. This study is conducted to investigate the effects of externship clinical course on medical students' history taking and patient presentation. Methods: This pre-/post-quasi-experimental study is conducted on all 3rd year medical students (62 externs). The students' performance is assessed through a researcher-made checklist. The McNemar's test is used to compare the pre- and post-test item frequencies. Results: The findings reveal that most of the medical students addressed the chief complaint and present illness of patient in their patient history presentation. Frequencies of correct performance are below 70% in the posttest. None of the externs tried to perform physical examination. The McNemar's test results revealed that in the eleven items and subitems, the student performance improved significantly. Conclusion: Educational activity in externship courses could improve some items in medical student patient presentation performance; while medical students had moderate competency in the patient presentation. The findings here correspond to the finding in previous studies.