Correlation of In-training Examination Score with the Residency Program or the Score of the Board Examination of Laboratory Medicine

Jungwon Huh; Jongwan Kim; Jongwoo Park; Hyunok Kim

doi:10.3343/kjlm.2006.26.3.227

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Huh, Kim, Park, and Kim: Correlation of In-training Examination Score with the Residency Program or the Score of the Board Examination of Laboratory Medicine

Original Article

Korean J Leg Med 2006;26(3):227-231.

Published online: 10 February 2006

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3343/kjlm.2006.26.3.227

Correlation of In-training Examination Score with the Residency Program or the Score of the Board Examination of Laboratory Medicine

Jungwon Huh, M.D.¹, Jongwan Kim, M.D.², Jongwoo Park, M.D.³, Hyunok Kim, M.D.⁴

¹Department of Laboratory Medicine, Ewha Womans University, College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

²Dankook University, College of Medicine, Cheonan, Korea

³Chungnam National University, College of Medicine, Daejeon, Korea

⁴Yonsei University, College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Received 14 March 2006 Revised 10 April 2006 Accepted 2 May 2006

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Background

An in-training examination is given annually to the all laboratory medicine residents of in Korea. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the results of the in-training examinations according to the examinees' postgraduate years, a number of teaching faculty members and hospital beds, and the score of the board examination.

Methods

A total number of examinees during the 5-year period from 2001 to 2005 were 311. All residents took the same in-training examinations given each year irrespective of the postgraduate year (PGY).

Results

The scores of in-training examinations increased with advance in the examinees' PGY (P<0.01). The scores were not different according to the size of teaching faculty or hospital beds (P>0.05). The correlation coefficients of each PGY scores were from 0.474 to 0.755 (P<0.01). The scores of the 4th PGY were correlated with those of the board examinations (r=0.627, P<0.001).

Conclusions

These results suggest that the scores of the in-training examinations may be a valid measure of knowledge acquired by residents during their training years and provide a useful information for improving the laboratory medicine residency training program.

Keywords: In-training examination, Residents, Score, Postgraduate year, Teaching Faculty, Hospital bed, Board examination

References

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Fig. 1.

Comparison of scores according to the postgraduate year (PGY).

Fig. 2.

Correlation between scores of the 4th postgraduate year (PGY) and scores of board examination.

Table 1.

Number of examinees

Residency level	Year
Residency level	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2001–2005
1 PGY	13	14	13	23	28	91
2 PGY	15	11	13	10	15	64
3 PGY	17	14	12	15	11	69
4 PGY	30	19	14	11	13	87
Overall	75	58	52	59	67	311

Abbreviation: PGY, postgraduate year.

Table 2.

Scores of examinees (mean±SD)

Residency level	Year
Residency level	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2001–2005
1 PGY	42.3±6.4	45.1±10.1	44.4±12.6	46.9±6.5	48.0±6.3	46.0±8.2
2 PGY	49.1±9.4	52.7±8.3	55.5±8.7	51.7±8.3	50.8±6.7	51.8±8.4
3 PGY	53.8±7.8	54.8±12.5	59.6±10.9	60.4±8.6	51.6±6.1	56.1±9.7
4 PGY	60.8±9.4	62.2±11.9	63.1±12.0	65.9±10.4	60.1±6.7	62.0±10.2
Overall	53.7±10.9	54.6±12.6	55.7±12.8	54.7±11.0	51.6±7.7	54.0±11.0
P value	<0.001	<0.01	<0.01	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001

Abbreviation: PGY, postgraduate year.

Table 3.

Comparison of standard scores (mean±SD) according to the number of teaching faculty

Residency level	Number of teaching faculty				P value
Residency level	2–3	4–5	6–7	>7	P value
Overall
Number	45	69	49	148
Score	48.6±8.7	52.1±9.8	48.7±9.1	49.8±10.4	0.175
1 PGY
Number	13	16	15	47
Score	46.5±6.0	43.4±5.1	41.6±6.6	42.2±8.8	0.279
2 PGY
Number	9	16	9	30
Score	43.2±7.9	50.5±6.9	47.5±8.1	48.2±8.0	0.169
3 PGY
Number	7	17	12	33
Score	46.6±7.4	53.1±9.5	48.8±5.4	52.6±8.0	0.162
4 PGY
Number	16	20	13	38
Score	54.1±9.2	59.6±9.3	57.7±7.6	58.0±8.7	0.313

Abbreviation: PGY, postgraduate year.

Table 4.

Comparison of standard scores (mean±SD) according to the number of hospital bed

Residency level	Number of hospital bed			P value
Residency level	501–800	801–1,000	>1,000	P value
Overall
Number	66	92	153
Score	50.3±10.3	49.8±8.7	49.9±10.4	0.946
1 PGY
Number	17	25	49
Score	41.4±6.0	44.0±5.5	42.9±9.0	0.583
2 PGY
Number	15	19	30
Score	48.2±7.5	47.6±8.0	48.2±8.3	0.960
3 PGY
Number	16	21	32
Score	52.9±9.6	49.8±6.5	51.8±8.3	0.478
4 PGY
Number	18	27	42
Score	58.1±9.6	56.7±8.6	57.9±8.7	0.836

Abbreviation: PGY, postgraduate year.

Table 5.

Correlation coefficients of standard scores according to the postgraduate year

Residency level	1 PGY	2 PGY	3 PGY	4 PGY
1 PGY	1
2 PGY	0.478^*	1
3 PGY	0.655^*	0.755^*	1
4 PGY	0.708^*	0.519^*	0.474^*	1

^* P<0.01.

Abbreviation: PGY, postgraduate year.

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