[Level of clinical competence in seven cohorts of medical students at the end of the internship].

INTRODUCTION Objective structured clinical examination is the instrument with more validated evidence to assess the degree of clinical competence of medical students. OBJECTIVES To assess the degree of clinical competence of medical students at the end of their internship; to assess the reliability of the instruments with G theory. METHODS This was an observational, longitudinal, and comparative study. The target population was composed of 5,399 interns of seven generations that finished their internship at the Faculty of Medicine of UNAM, between 2009 and 2015. The instrument used was 18 OSCE stations, three in each subject of the internship. RESULTS The undergraduate medical interns show a sufficient degree of clinical competence to be general practitioners. The laboratory interpretation and physical examination had the highest scores. The interpretation of imaging studies was the component with the lowest score. The Family Medicine disciplinal area had the highest average score in the OSCE; in contrast, Pediatrics obtained the lowest score on average. The reliability was measured with Generalizability Theory and ranged between 0.81 and 0.93. CONCLUSIONS The clinical competence of undergraduate medical interns is considered sufficient. The results also show the subjects that require educational interventions to improve clinical competence of students.