Overview of the OSCE Station

Abstract

Abstract Student health care practitioners are often apprehensive about simulated examinations as they have never undertaken an examination like this before and often do not know what to expect. The purpose of the chapter is to explore the OSCE process and help you to understand and plan for your own OSCE. OSCE examinations may be organized very differently depending upon the subject of the examination and your own university’s preference. Most simulated examinations are held in clinical skills rooms or simulation suites at the student’s university campus. Very occasionally they may be held off site at another location, e.g. a hospital teaching room. The examination structure may vary dramatically (Bloomfield et al. 2010) and may be: ● Multiple short stations, ● Complex single stations, ● Unmanned station. These are also known as ‘short case’ OSCE stations. A typical short station OSCE will involve the student health care practitioner ‘rotating’ around a number of different stations. It is likely that within each examination room several skills will be assessed at any one time and part of the assessment will involve moving from station to station to ensure that students complete all skills/knowledge assessments that are required. This format allows examiners to assess a range of skills during one simulated examination period (Ahuja 2009). The number of stations will depend upon the university’s examination structure but it may be that there are up to five stations to attend. Some universities ask students to rotate around more than this (in some occasions up to 20). This type of OSCE is very common in pre-registration nursing OSCEs (Bloomfield et al. 2010). Simulated examinations may be held in one room or students may be required to move from room to room to ensure all skills are assessed. This type of OSCE is usually used to examine the more complex skills and may be used in the final year to test more complicated skills such as assessment of the sick patient. You should be aware that you may also be asked to undertake OSCE in your post-registration nurse education.