The Skin Cancer Objective Structured Clinical Examination (SCOSCE): A multi-institutional collaboration to develop and validate a clinical skills assessment for melanoma

Background: Assessing medical students on core skills related to melanoma detection is challenging in the absence of a well-developed instrument. Objective: We sought to develop an objective structured clinical examination for the detection and evaluation of melanoma among medical students. Methods: This was a prospective cohort analysis of student and objective rater agreement on performance of clinical skills and assessment of differences in performance across 3 schools. Results: Kappa coefficients indicated excellent agreement for 3 of 5 core skills including commenting on the presence of the moulage (k = 0.87, 95% confidence interval 0.77-0.96), obtaining a history for the moulage (k = 0.84, 95% confidence interval 0.74-0.94), and making a clinical impression (k = 0.80, 95% confidence interval 0.68-0.92). There were no differences in performance across schools with respect to 3 of 5 core skills: commenting on the presence of the moulage (P = .15), initiating a history (P = .53), and managing the suspicious lesion (P value range .07-.17). Overall, 54.2% and 44.7% of students commented on the presence of the moulage and achieved maximum performance of core skills, respectively, with no difference in performance across schools. Limitations: Limitations include overall sample size of students and schools. Conclusion: The Skin Cancer Objective Structured Clinical Examination represents a potentially important instrument to measure students' performance on the optimal step-by-step evaluation of a melanoma.