Medical Education > Development of a Remedial Course for Students Who Failed an OSCE

Development of a Remedial Course for Students Who Failed an OSCE

For further information contact katherine.worzala@jefferson.edu or jon.veloski@jefferson.edu

Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) sometimes identify students with deficiencies not previously recognized in clerkships. There are few reports of subsequent remedial programs.

We developed a 4-week clinical skills course for 8 of 224 students who failed a 10-station comprehensive OSCE at the end of the third-year. Seven failed because of unsatisfactory data gathering skills and one due to weak communication and interpersonal skills. The course, which was scheduled early in their fourth-year, included a review of history-taking, physical examination and data synthesis skills with faculty demonstrations, videos of standardized patients and practice sessions with immediate feedback. Faculty met with each student to discuss the cases the student failed in the OSCE. Students were required to write clinical templates for selected clinical problems and discuss them with the faculty. The students completed a mid-course, 5-station OSCE, and the faculty provided feedback. A 5-station OSCE was administered at the end of the course. Students completed a self-assessment and course evaluation.

The analysis will address the fraction of students that passed the OSCE at the end of the course. Whether data gathering scores increased from the third-year OSCE to the end-of-course OSCE will be determined. Scores on communication and interpersonal skills will be analyzed. Data will be available to determine whether the students expressed increased self-confidence in their clinical skills.

Presented at the Ottawa Conference on Clinical Competence, New York, May 2006