Background
MSK
Competent and thorough clinical examination is of vital importance in the care of patients. Good clinical examination skills have been shown to increase the quality of patient care, improve the doctor patient relationship and even reduce the cost of care [Therefore, it is disappointing that there is a lack of published evidence looking at the relative effectiveness of physical examination teaching. This situation is compounded by the fact that there are a number of studies have shown that these skills, and in particular skills in musculoskeletal (MSK) examination, are often lacking in undergraduate and postgraduate trainees [MSK teaching is often underrepresented within medical education with studies showing that as little as 2% of time teaching examination skills is focussed on MSK despite MSK problems making up to 20% of presenting complaints within primary care [The teaching of MSK examination skills remains widely varied across medical education providers [An integrative review of papers looking at trends in Medical Education describes how advanced technology is facilitating students’ education by allowing more individualised learning, social interaction between students and their teachers, and access to a wider variety of resources regardless of time or geographical location [The aim of this study was to establish whether a custom-made educational video augments the face-to-face teaching of clinical examination skills when teaching novice medical students clinical examination of the shoulder joint. We hypothesise that use of a video resource as an adjunct to small group teaching will give superior learning outcomes compared to small group teaching alone.