Fourth-Year Medical School Course Load and Success as a Medical Intern

BACKGROUND: The fourth year of medical school has come under recent scrutiny for its lack of structure, cost- and time-effectiveness, and quality of education it provides. Some have advocated for increasing clinical burden in the fourth year, while others have suggested it be abolished. OBJECTIVE: To assess the relationship between fourth-year course load and success during internship. METHODS: We reviewed transcripts of 78 internal medicine interns from 2011-2013 and compared the number of intensive courses (defined as subinternships, intensive care, surgical clerkships, and emergency medicine rotations) with multi-source performance evaluations from the internship. We assessed relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of achieving excellent scores according to the number of intensive courses taken, using generalized estimating equations, adjusting for demographics, US Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 board scores, and other measures of medical school performance. An association of intensive course work with increased risk of excellent performance was seen across multiple clinical competencies, including medical knowledge (RR 1.08, 95% CI 1.04-1.11); patient care (RR 1.07, 95% CI 1.04-1.10); and practice-based learning (RR 1.05, 95% CI 1.03-1.09). CONCLUSIONS: For this single institution's cohort of medical interns, increased exposure to intensive course work during the fourth year of medical school was associated with better clinical evaluations during internship.