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The OSCE or Objective Structured Clinical Examination is used to assess students of various health related disciplines, particularly medicine, nursing, pharmacy and dentistry.
Medical OSCEs test competency in clinical examinations, history taking, and communication as well as more practical OSCE skills like cannulation and ECG interpretation.
OSCE exams are usually in the format of multiple short OSCE stations where each medical student examines a real or simulated patient under the eye of an examiner.
Most candidates from a given medical school year group will be assessed using exactly the same OSCE stations and each station assesses a specific skill or task.
The exams range from General Medicine and Surgery OSCEs to Paediatrics and Psychiatry OSCEs
Medical students and doctors from foreign countries who wish to practice medicine in the UK must complete a PLAB OSCE examination.
The main method of studying for OSCEs is through clinical teaching at medical school and university hospital wards. A variety of OSCE books and a limited number of OSCE videos are also available to help students practice and prepare.
Medical students can attend OSCE courses to help revise for examinations, where dummies and case studies are used as the main method of teaching. The only OSCE course which uses real patients for teaching purposes is the OSCE video series, Ace the OSCE.
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