Comparison between residents with a 6-year medical program and a 7-year medical program in terms of objective structured clinical examination performance in postgraduate year training in Taiwan: a 2-group pre- and post-test non-synchronized study

The purpose of this study was to examine whether postgraduate residents who learned under the new program have better patient care skills than those who learned under the previous program. Of 101 residents in the PGY program at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, 78 were trained in the 6-year program, while 23 were trained in the 7-year program. During the PGY training, 2 objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) were used to evaluate clinical reasoning, communication skills, and procedural skills at the beginning of the training and after 11 months of training, respectively.