Osce: Yet to Find Its Place in Medical Curriculum in India

Abstract

BACKGROUND Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is in its preliminary stage in the Indian Medical Curriculum. OSCE provides an established and reliable way of skill assessment in an objective and transparent manner. There is a need to rethink and reorganise our medical examination system in a more rational way so that much emphasis should be given to the formative assessment of the students rather than the traditional long/short case presentation and assessing theoretical knowledge. AIM To assess the clinical skills of undergraduate students of final year MBBS via 6 observed stations of OSCE and to compare the results with the traditional practical examination theoretical assessment. SETTINGS AND DESIGN Cross-sectional study conducted in the Department of Paediatrics of a tertiary level Medical College Hospital. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was conducted on the 90 students of final year MBBS who have completed their one month posting in Paediatrics Department. Students were asked to undergo an OSCE examination at 6 observed stations and time of 5 minutes was allotted for each station. After that, they were asked to write down the answers of the same questions in the notebook provided and the results of the OSCE and written answers were then compared. RESULTS Only 12 (13.33%), 15 (16.66%), 9 (10%), 21 (23.33%), 4 (4.44%) and 6 (6.66%) of students performed all steps correctly respectively at 1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd , 4 th , 5 th and 6 th station. Significant improvement in the results was seen when OSCE scores were compared to the written results. CONCLUSION OSCE is the most preferred way of assessing clinical skills of students. More efforts should be made to integrate it into each and every institution's medical curriculum.

Report: Holding clinical competency examination among medical students in Faculty of Medicine, Tabriz, Iran

“…29 Accordingly, Bansal and Gaur have concluded that OSCE is the most preferred way of assessing clinical skills of students and concluded that more efforts should be made to integrate it into each and every institution's medical curriculum. 30 It can be concluded that the students and teachers had consensus over using objective structured clinical/practical examination as a tool of assessment in community medicine. OSCE can provide a valid and reliable method of assessing the clinical skills of students.…”