Objective Structured Clinical Examination for competence assessment

Abstract

The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is designed to assess clinical competence and is primarily used to assess basic clinical skills. It is a versatile assessment tool to evaluate dental students in a clinical setting. Dental students are assessed at a number of “stations” on distinct focused activities that simulate different aspects of clinical competence. These examinations are carefully timed, with 4 to 5 minutes usually allotted for the performance of each station. At each station, a concise clinical description or account is given and the student is instructed to perform a specific task such as history-taking stations or mixing of dental material. Standardised patients or simulators may be used. OSCE stations may incorporate the assessment of interpretation, non-patient skills and technical skills. It can also be short answer stations. OSCE is precise, objective, and reproducible allowing uniform testing of dental students for a board range of clinical skills. Unlike the traditional clinical examination, OSCE can assess areas most critical to performance of dental professionals such as communication skills and ability to handle unpredictable patient behavior. Learning Objectives After this lecture, the audience should understand 1) Clinical competence in dental education 2) Using OSCE to assess clinical competence