“Heidelberg Standard Examination” – Final year students' experiences with a handbook and instructional videos to improve medical competence in conducting physical examinations

Background: The physical examination (PE) of patients is a core competence in almost all medical disciplines. The teaching materials “Heidelberger Standard Examination”, consisting of a handbook and accompanying videos, were developed with the objective of providing medical students with an innovative faculty-wide teaching and examination standard to sustainably advance students’ PE competences during medical training. Methods: In a “mixed-method approach” comprising both quantitative and qualitative measures, our study examined Heidelberg University Hospital final year (FY) medical students’ use and evaluation of the individual teaching material components. Therefore, 92 FY students completed quantitative evaluation measures and ten FY students took part in individual 30-minute semi-structured interviews. Results: Of the sample of n=77 students, who had completed the clinical part of their studies at Heidelberg University Hospital, 97.4% (n=75) had used the handbook and 35.0% (n=27) the accompanying videos. The teaching materials were evaluated via the common German six-point school grading system with an average mark of 1.35±0.5 for the handbook and a mark of 2.15±1.0 for the accompanying videos. Further, our results show that FY students especially valued the “Heidelberg Standard Examination” handbook as a guide and general reference work and felt the materials improved their self-perceived PE competence. Although FY students saw the accompanying video material as helpful, it was less frequently used, indicating further development potential. Overall, results reveal that FY students perceive the “Heidelberg Standard Examination” teaching program to contribute to the improvement of the quality of their PE training.