Experience of OSCE in faculty of medicine, Alzaeim Alazhari University, Sudan

Abstract

Background: The traditional classical clinical exam (CCE) has limitations in terms of validity and reliability. Nowadays the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is widely used to assess the clinical performance of medical students. Objective: To reflect and share the experience of OSCE exams in clinical departments in the Faculty of Medicine, Alzaeim Alazhari University (AAU) and to encourage more modifications to improve its quality. Material and Methodology: Data regarding clinical assessment; OSCEs versus classical clinical examinations was collected from faculty records. The collected data was entered computer and managed statistically using SPSS version 21. Results: Overall in the group of students examined by OSCE 67.7% rewarded grade B and above, whereas in the contrary 60.5% of students in CCE rewarded grade C+ and below, this difference was statistically significant (p=0.002).Conclusion: OSCE is an excellent tool, and fair to the students, as all examiners use the same check lists provided by the department. Students tend to do better in the clinical part of the examination when this type of assessment is used.