[Application of Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) for pediatric internship assessment in two schools of medicine]

Abstract

Background: The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) has become a respected and widely used tool for the assessment of clinical competence in medical education.

Aim: To describe the first experience of an OSCE as a summative assessment in undergraduate Pediatric Internship, in two universities.

Material and methods: The OSCE was structured by a committee of faculty members of the 5 campi of University of Chile and I campus of the Catholic University. A 21 station OSCE was administered simultaneously to 124 Pediatric Interns (University of Chile = 104, Catholic University = 20), in 3 centers. A total of 50 faculty members participated in the examination. The OSCE consisted of 20 clinical problems, including videotape recordings, photographs, x-rays and laboratory exams, phantoms and 7 simulated standardized parents.

Results: The average total OSCE score was 67.3% (range: 84.5%-43.5%). The maximum theoretic score was achieved in 19 stations. A significant correlation between station and total score, was found for 18 of the 20 clinical problems.

Conclusions: The experience of using OSCE has been a success. The OSCE was an adequate procedure to assess a large number of interns simultaneously and it allowed us to measure the main objectives in all domains and a wide range of clinical competence of Pediatric Internship Programs.