Impact of COVID Pandemic and Hybrid teaching on Final year MBBS students’ End of clerkship Exam performance

Background & Objectives: The novel coronavirus (SAR-CoV-2) pandemic has revolutionized medical education worldwide. Most medical schools have adopted the online teaching and assessments. Students attending modified clerkships and assessments under the stress of the pandemic, perform and score differently when compared to normal clerkships. We aimed to identify the impact of COVID-19 on final year MBBS students’ EOC (End of Clerkship) examination by comparing them with their scores prior to the COVID and with scores of the previous final year.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at Shifa College of Medicine. Final year MBBS students’ scores of years 2019 and 2020 were included. Students’ EOC MCQ and OSCE scores were compared in pre-COVID and COVID affected rotations of the same year and with the previous year (2019). Data were analyzed in SPSS version 21, means scores were calculated, and one-way ANOVA was applied. Pearson correlation was calculated for correlation assessment of MCQ and OSCE scores.

Results: There were 118 students. The mean EOC, OSCE, and MCQ scores in rotations one to four were 72.8±6.4, 73.3±8.1, 71.6±7.4, 72.7±6.7 and 44.4±8, 47.2±8.4, 46.1±8.2, 48.8±8.1, respectively. One-way ANOVA results before and after COVID lockdown were statistically insignificant (p=0.3) for OSCE and significant for MCQ in the final year class of 2020 (p=0.001). The Pearson correlation assessment between MCQ and OSCE scores (n=416) had a significant positive correlation (r=0.42, p=0.000). The overall comparison between scores of the final year class of 2019 and 2020 showed significant improvement in Surgery and Obstetrics/Gynae scores in 2020.

Conclusion: During the COVID pandemic, the final year students’ performance in EOC MCQ and OSCE over all remained unaffected.