Background: At Griffith University Graduate Entry MD program, students commence clinical skills workshops across the domains of professional communication and counselling skills, procedural and physical examination skills from the beginning of Year 1 with extensive use of simulation. Students’ competency across these domains was previously assessed by one summative end of year OSCE. Multisource feedback from academic staff, students and clinical teachers, identified several challenges, including insufficient supervised practise of physical examination and procedural skills, lack of confidence utilizing these skills in the clinical environment, lack of formative assessment and high student anxiety regarding end of year summative assessment. Summary of Work: This presentation will detail the implementation and evaluation of a program of progressive competency-based assessment of physical examination and procedural skills into Year 1 MD in 2018. The evaluation methodology included pre- and post-intervention surveys related to the gastrointestinal physical examination module as well as focus groups. Separate focus groups were facilitated for medical students and facilitators by two researchers at the end of the 2018 academic year, utilizing a semi-structured interview process. The focus groups were recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed. Summary of Results: Preliminary key findings will be presented at the AMEE conference in 2019. Discussion and Conclusions: Our hypothesis is that the embedding of multiple low stakes clinical skills assessments across the academic year with increased supervised practise and formative assessment will positively impact on student learning and acquisition of relevant skills. Take-home Messages: Implementation of progressive competency-based assessment of clinical skills is both feasible and acceptable to students and staff, and has a positive impact on student learning.