Evaluation of student’s competencies on Social Medicine internship with the Objective Structured Clinical Examination method

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to evaluate OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) stations elaborated to asses competencies of external students on the 5th year of Social Medicine internship at the Faculty of Medicine of Monastir, in Tunisia, carried out over a year. The total number of OSCE stations was 32 with an average of 5.3 ± 2.3 stations per session, each station lasting five minutes. More than half of OSCE stations were a clinical vignette type (68.7%), followed by photo-type stations in 8 cases (25%). The total number of tasks required was 76. The number of stations about a single task was 18.75%. More than two-thirds of tasks involved competencies of cognitive level type III (72.1%). The number of elements per correction grid varied between 4 and 10 with an average of 6.44 ± 1.8 elements. At the end of the different examination sessions, the success rate was low (15-19 / 30) for 61% of learners with a discrimination index -0.41 and a difficulty index of tests 66%. These results attest the feasibility of OSCE stations for evaluation of skills in medical specialty. However, a regular and more thorough evaluation of this method is necessary in order to promote skills of future general practitioner.

Evaluation of the implementation of the objective structured clinical examination in health sciences education from a low‐income context in Tunisia: A cross‐sectional study

“…The COVID‐19 pandemic has created various limitations in conducting practical assessments in medical education, leading health sciences educators worldwide to recalibrate their traditional educational methods. In response, Tunisia's Ministry of Higher Education has been at the forefront in catalyzing a paradigm shift towards more flexible and resilient educational strategies, including incorporating online simulations in OSCEs for the first time in Tunisia 10 …”

“…While OSCEs are universally recognized, little empirical inquiry exists to examine the feedback from health sciences students and educators from low‐resource settings like Tunisia. Although previous studies in Tunisia have evaluated the use of OSCEs in specific domains, such as medical internships for medical students, 10,13 an assessment of its application across multiple health sciences educational programs has been lacking. This study contributes to the limited literature by evaluating the adoption of OSCEs in health sciences education at the SHSTS of the University of Sousse—a low‐resource setting where constraints and educational traditions may pose unique challenges 14 .…”

“…In response, Tunisia's Ministry of Higher Education has been at the forefront in catalyzing a paradigm shift towards more flexible and resilient educational strategies, including incorporating online simulations in OSCEs for the first time in Tunisia. 10 …”

“…In response, Tunisia's Ministry of Higher Education has been at the forefront in catalyzing a paradigm shift towards more flexible and resilient educational strategies, including incorporating online simulations in OSCEs for the first time in Tunisia. 10 In Tunisia, the medical sciences education is organized under the License-Master-Doctorate (LMD) system. This system covers various medical education specialities, such as nursing.…”