643 Vol. 35, No. 9 Medical students’ interpersonal and communication skills are a fundamental dimension of their clinical com- petence. These skills refer to the ability to communi- cate and interact with patients in a clinical setting. 1 Such skills are often evaluated during the clerkship Objec- tive Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) or other clinical performance-based examinations that simulate a patient encounter. In these examinations, students interact with a standardized patient (SP) to demonstrate their abilities in history taking, conducting a physical examination, and applying interpersonal and commu- nication skills for providing tasks such as counseling, breaking bad news, etc. Faculty observers, using stan- dardized checklists, may rate the students’ performance during these encounters, including the interpersonal and communication skill aspects of their performance. 2-5 Often, SPs also evaluate and provide feedback to stu- dents about their communication and interpersonal skills during the encounter. 1,5-9 In addition to assessing students’ clinical competence during clerkship OSCEs, many US medical schools are now administering fourth-year clinical performance examinations to assess students’ clinical skills prior to graduation. 10 These exams also provide an opportunity for the assessment of students’ communication and in- terpersonal skills. Given the anticipated US Medical Licensure Exami- nation (USMLE) Standardized Patient Examination for all US medical school graduates, 11 assessment of stu- dents’ clinical competence through clerkship OSCEs and fourth-year clinical performance examinations pro- vides both medical schools and students important evaluation feedback. If students’ communication and interpersonal skills improve or decline during the third year, such change could have important implications for students’ performance on a fourth-year, high-stakes clinical examination. If third-year performance exami- nations can predict performance on a fourth-year, high- Ass ess ing Students’ Comm unication an d I nterpers o nal Sk ills Acr oss Ev aluation Setti ngs Al e x an der W. C h essm an, MD; Amy V. Blu e, PhD; Gregory E. Gil bert, MSPH; Maura C are y, MA; Arch G. Main ous III, PhD From the Department of Family Medicine (Drs Chessman and Mainous), Dean’s Office and Department of Family Medicine (Dr Blue), and Dean’s Office (Mr Gilbert and Ms Carey), Medical University of South Carolina. B a c k g r o u n d a n d O b j e c t i v e s : Medical students’ interpersonal and communication skills are a funda- mental dimension of their clinical competence and will be measured on the anticipated US Medical Licensure Examination (USMLE) standardized patient (SP) exam. We compared students’performance on measures of SP satisfaction on a third-year family medicine Objective Structured Clinical Examina- tion (OSCE) with measures of SP satisfaction on a fourth-year Clinical Practice Examination (CPX). M e t h o d s : A total of 127 students completed both the clerkship OSCE and a CPX. The CPX was a pilot of the National Board of Medical Examiners Standardized Patient Exam. To assess students’ interper- sonal skills, both exams used modified versions of the American Board of Internal Medicine Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire. Students’ scores were standardized, and correlations were calculated. A logistic regression model examined the ability of the OSCE to predict poor performance on the CPX. R e s u l t s : The correlation between the OSCE and CPX patient satisfaction scores was .08. There was no significant predictive ability of the OSCE for poor performance on the CPX. C o n c l u s i o n s : Our study calls into question the ability of a routine end-of-clerkship OSCE to identify students’ interpersonal skills abilities on fourth-year clinical performance exams and potentially that component of the antici- pated USMLE SP exam. (Fam Med 2003;35(9):643-8.) Medi cal St u dent Edu cati on