Assessment

The assessment in all five years of the GEMD Programme is designed to evaluate the knowledge, skills and professional competencies that students need to achieve in order to practice medicine.

Knowledge and Skills are assessed by:

  1. Final Exams (Years 1-3)
  2. End of Year Exams (Years 4-5)
  3. Project work (in Years 1-3) including scientific reports, oral presentations and posters.

Practical skills are assessed by Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs). OSCEs are practical exams in which the students’ clinical and communication skills are evaluated in the context of standardized medical scenarios. Students have to demonstrate competency in a range of skills, including history-taking, explaining and negotiating, physical examination, procedural skills, clinical reasoning, diagnosis and management. Both simulated and real patients are involved.

Professional Competencies are assessed longitudinally in every year and in Years 4-5 by Workplace Based Assessments and reflective portfolio entries.

The details of assessment for each year of the graduate entry MD programme (GEMD) are thoroughly described in the Scheme of Assessment, which is available to the students upon enrolment on the programme.

Assessment of the Highest Quality

In the graduate entry MD programme (GEMD) several mechanisms are in place to ensure assessment is of the highest quality. All assessments are blueprinted against the curriculum and thoroughly reviewed by Internal Moderators, an Assessment Panel and an External Examiner.  Pass marks are established via a standard setting approach, as appropriate for the type of exam. The results of each exam, including relevant psychometric analysis, are reviewed during Results Meetings.

Formative assessments, such as formative online quizzes, are an integral part of Years 1-3 and play an important role in the support of learning. They are followed by a plenary feedback session delivered by the Course Lead. At the end of Year 2, students take a formative OSCE and detailed constructive feedback for each station is provided to them.