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Abstract Background This study aimed to identify hotspots in research on clinical competence measurements from 2012 to 2016. Methods The authors retrieved literature published between 2012 and 2016 from PubMed using selected medical subject headings (MeSH) terms. They used BibExcel software to generate high-frequency MeSH terms and identified hotspots by co-word analysis and cluster analysis. Results The authors searched 588 related articles and identified 31 high-frequency MeSH terms. In addition, they obtained 6 groups of high-frequency MeSH terms that reflected the domain hotspots. Conclusions This study identified 6 hotspots of domain research, including studies on influencing factors and perception evaluation, improving and developing measurement tools, feedback measurement, measurement approaches based on computer simulation, the measurement of specific students in different learning phases, and the measurement of students’ communication ability. All of these research topics could provide useful information for educators and researchers to continually conduct in-depth studies.