ArticleBMC medical education2024
The reliability of the College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand "Hot Case" examination.
Article in BMC medical education, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- The CICM second part viva reliability coefficient: Which index, for which decision, against which benchmark?Critical care and resuscitation : journal of the Australasian Academy of Critical Care Medicine · 2026Article
- The reliability of the College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand viva examination.Critical care and resuscitation : journal of the Australasian Academy of Critical Care Medicine · 2026Article
- Assessment methods in graduate medical education in critical care: a scoping review.BMC medical education · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundHigh stakes examinations used to credential trainees for independent specialist practice should be evaluated periodically to ensure defensible decisions are made. This study aims to quantify the College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand (CICM) Hot Case reliability coefficient and evaluate contributions to variance from candidates, cases and examiners.
methodsThis retrospective, de-identified analysis of CICM examination data used descriptive statistics and generalisability theory to evaluate the reliability of the Hot Case examination component. Decision studies were used to project generalisability coefficients for alternate examination designs.
resultsExamination results from 2019 to 2022 included 592 Hot Cases, totalling 1184 individual examiner scores. The mean examiner Hot Case score was 5.17 (standard deviation 1.65). The correlation between candidates' two Hot Case scores was low (0.30). The overall reliability coefficient for the Hot Case component consisting of two cases observed by two separate pairs of examiners was 0.42. Sources of variance included candidate proficiency (25%), case difficulty and case specificity (63.4%), examiner stringency (3.5%) and other error (8.2%). To achieve a reliability coefficient of > 0.8 a candidate would need to perform 11 Hot Cases observed by two examiners.
conclusionThe reliability coefficient for the Hot Case component of the CICM second part examination is below the generally accepted value for a high stakes examination. Modifications to case selection and introduction of a clear scoring rubric to mitigate the effects of variation in case difficulty may be helpful. Increasing the number of cases and overall assessment time appears to be the best way to increase the overall reliability. Further research is required to assess the combined reliability of the Hot Case and viva components.
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