ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1582218
Enhancing Clinical Competency in Infectious Disease Training: A Longitudinal Study of Mini-CEX Implementation for Medical Interns Authors
Provisionally accepted
- Department of Infectious Diseases, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
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Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise (Mini-CEX) in assessing and improving clinical competencies among medical interns during a 4-week infectious disease rotation. Methods: Forty-six medical interns were assessed using Mini-CEX at the start and end of their rotation. The tool evaluated seven domains: history taking, physical examination, clinical judgment, humanistic care, communication skills, organizational effectiveness, and overall competence. Teaching physicians were trained uniformly before the trial. After the internship, interns and teaching physicians completed questionnaires and interviews. Results:During the internship period when Mini-CEX was implemented, significant improvements were observed in interns' clinical skills across multiple domains. For example, the average scores of interns in history taking increased from 5.12±0.89 to 6.22±1.01, and in physical examination from 3.97±0.69 to 5.24±0.86. Interns showed high acceptance and satisfaction with Mini-CEX. The implementation of Mini-CEX also improved teaching effectiveness, with enhanced teacher-student interactions. Conclusion: Mini-CEX is a feasible and effective tool for clinical skill development in infectious disease training. Its structured feedback mechanism aligns with competency-based medical education (CBME) goals. Future studies should explore its scalability across disciplines and integration with complementary assessment tools.
Keywords: Mini-CEX, clinical skills assessment, Infectious disease department, Interns, Medical Education
Received: 26 Apr 2025; Accepted: 24 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Wang, Li, Zhang, Cai and Zhong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shan Zhong, Department of Infectious Diseases, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
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