An objective undergraduate clinical examination in child health.

Abstract

SUMMARY A new type of test used to examine medical students' clinical skills in paediatrics is described. Each student has to circulate round a number of timed stations. At each one he performs a specified clinical procedure-such as history taking, physical examination, urine analysis, and radiological interpretation-and is marked according to his performance. This type of test is objective and can be extended to cover different aspects of clinical methods; it readily informs the student about his progress, and enables the teacher to look critically at his own technique.

The Objective Structured Clinical Examination

“…It was not until the early 1980s that 3 articles highlighted the use of the OSCE in pediatrics. [2][3][4] The first article was merely descriptive. 2 Similar to the initial OSCE, the test included 20 stations, allowing students 4 minutes per station.…”

A Pediatric Clinical Skills Assessment Using Children as Standardized Patients

“…15 Three centers in the United Kingdom developed OSCEs in pediatrics for medical students in the early 1980s. [16][17][18] However, it was not until this decade that pediatric OSCEs (with the short-station format and use of some SPs) were used to evaluate the clinical skills of residents. [19][20][21][22] There is a need to further investigate the SP methods for use in pediatric training.…”

Primary school children in a large-scale OSCE: Recipe for disaster or formula for success?

“…Historically children have often taken part in undergraduate and postgraduate assessment, but their views on participating in this way have not usually been elicited (Waterston et al 1980;Watson et al 1982;Frost 1987). The limited literature on the views of children helping with assessments or exams reports that children perceive this as a positive experience (Woodward & Gliva-McConvey 1995;Lane et al 1999;Carraccio & Englander 2000), and are motivated to help educate doctors (Klaber & Pollock 2009).…”

“…These bigger exams tend to have greater reliability and are fairer since all students are examined on the same clinical tasks (Carraccio & Englander 2000;Boursicot et al 2007). Within paediatrics, the OSCE format has been used successfully since the 1980's (Waterston et al 1980), usually for relatively small exam cohorts of 60-100 candidates (Jackson 1981;Watson et al 1982;Frost 1987).…”