Objetive Structured Clinical Examination for a pediatric internship assessment in two schools of medicine

Backgrounds The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) has become a respected and widely used tool for the assessment of clinical competence in medical education. Aim: To describe the first experience of an OSCE as a summative assessment in undergraduate Pediatric Internship, in two universities. Material and Methods: The OSCE was structured by, a committee of faculty members of the 5 campi of University of Chile and I campus of the Catholic University A 21 station OSCE was administered simultaneously, to 124 Pediatric Intents (University of Chile = 104, Catholic University=20), in 3 centers. A total of 50 faculty members participated in the examination. The OSCE consisted of 20 clinical problems including videotape recordings, photographs, x-rays and laboratory exams phantoms and 7 simulated standardized parents. Results: The average total OSCE score was 67.3% (range. 84.5%-43.5%). The maximum theoretic score was achieved in 19 stations. A significant correlation between station and total score, was found for 18 of the 20 clinical problems. Conclusions: The experience of using OSCE has been a success. Tire OSCE was art adequate procedure to assess a large number of interns simultaneously and it allotted its to measure the maim objectives in all domains and a wide range of clinical competence of Pediatric Internship Programs.