The Art of Writing Multiple Choice Questions (CDEM-Sponsored)
The goal of this workshop is to develop questions for the M4 national exam, offered by SAEM and SAEM's Clerkship Directors in Emergency Medicine (CDEM) academy. The exam provides clerkship directors with access to a standardized assessment, administered
to over 4,500 students last year and taken by nearly 20,000 students since its inception. Ensuring that the exam includes well-written questions that assess core emergency medicine knowledge is critical. The workshop will be divided into two parts:
first, an overview of best practices for writing multiple-choice questions and identifying common pitfalls; second, a hands-on session where participants will develop and refine new questions and revise existing ones.
Learning Objectives:
Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:
- Describe the appropriate utilization of multiple choice questions in assessment
- List the elements of effective multiple choice questions
- Discuss common multiple choice question flaws
Presenters:
- Doug Franzen, MD, M.Ed
- Navdeep Sekhon, MD
- Meredith Thompson, MD, MAEd, FACEP
Authors
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Doug Franzen, MD, M.Ed
University of Washington
Dr. Franzen is the Director of Student Programs and an associate residency director at the University of Washington. He is a past-president of CDEM and has been an active member since it was founded. He is the chair of the NBME EM-ACE committee that writes and maintains the EM-ACE.
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Navdeep Sekhon, MD
Associate Professor & Clerkship Director
Baylor College of Medicine
Navdeep Sekhon, MD, is an Associate Professor and Clerkship Director (EM Clerkship) at the Baylor College of Medicine Henry J. N. Taub Department of Emergency Medicine. Sekhon did medical school at the University of California at San Diego and residency at East Carolina University. He has been advising medical students interested in emergency medicine since 2016. Sekhon is currently a Member-at-Large for the Executive Committee of Clerkship Directors in Emergency Medicine (CDEM). -
Meredith Thompson, MD, MAEd, FACEP
University of Florida
Dr. Thompson earned a B.S. from the University of Florida (UF), and completed her medical training at the University of Virginia. She continued her residency education in Emergency Medicine at the University of Virginia, where she served as chief resident and also completed a fellowship in Medical Education. After fellowship, Dr. Thompson joined the UF faculty in 2018 and completed her Masters of Education in 2024. She divides her clinical time between four clinical sites including the main adult ED, the pediatric ED, and the freestanding EDs at Springhill and Kanapaha.
Dr. Thompson serves as the department's Vice Chair of Education and the Director of Learning Environment for the UF COM Office of Student Affairs. Her current scholarly interests include trainee support, clerkship assessment and curriculum development, novel educational delivery models, and improving the learning environment.