A Paradigmatic Shift For Final Undergraduate Medical Students’ Examination: The COVID-19 Pandemic Approach

Abstract

COVID-19 has made medical education delivery changed around the world. High stakes examinations have to take place despite the ongoing pandemic. Careful planning and considerations are mandatory in order to cater for the physical and social distancing new norms. The safety of everyone involved in the examinations (students, academics, patients and support staff) is put at the utmost priority to prevent further disease transmission. Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) has made a drastic change in the conduct of its final professional examination for the undergraduate medical students. The traditional one long case and three short cases clinical examinations were converted to objective structured clinical examination (OSCE), comprising sixteen manned stations lasting 10 minutes each. The COVID-19 pandemic has become the stimulus for a paradigmatic shift in the final undergraduate medical students’ examination at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, USIM. This paper describes how the paradigmatic shift resulted in a successful conversion of assessment method from the traditional one long case and three short cases clinical examinations to sixteen manned objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) stations. The feedback from the examiners and students were highlighted. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a new insight to the faculty members on alternative teaching and learning methodologies as well as how assessments can be conducted in the faculty. When left with not many choices, faculty members who were previously not convinced towards OSCE for summative assessment are now seeing OSCE as the way forward.