Formative Osce

So a few weeks ago, I had my sweat drenching formative OSCE. You can see how that went here. 

Overall, I have gotten 64%..

Marking of the Year 3 OSCE's are as follows:

In order to pass the OSCE, students have to fulfil all of the following criteria:

• gain a mark of 57% or more overall
• have no more than 4 stations with a mark of less than 4
• have no more than 2 stations with a mark of less than 3.

Moroever:

A grade of Satisfactory is equivalent to a score of 4/7 for 50% of the stations and a score of 5/7 for the other 50% of the stations (i.e. >64%)

This would suggest, I have literally scraped through yet again, I have literally just met that criteria.

The examiner marks you on various aspects of the station out of 5. This scale ranges from “uses no elements” to “uses all elements”. You are then given an overall global mark which is the examiner’s expert judgement of your overall performance on the station. The global score is not simply derived by aggregating the domain ratings but instead reflect how you performed the station overall. [This means if you were to make a life threatening mistake in part of your station, you would still fail overall]The global rating is a 7-point scale with <3 being a fail and 4+ being a pass.

So looking at my individual stations:

1.Abdo Exam: Score -  5/7(Good)

This was my most confident station. 

Part of my feedback was to "examine the back". I e-mailed my year lead about this straight after this formative and he literally said, "No, you're right, you don't need to do this". WTF.

"Minimal interaction with the patient," - hmm, i'm not quite sure about this. I would beg to differ actually but OK.

2. Explain COPD - 4/7 (Satisfactory)

So I had a bit of a mare with this one, getting completely lost in it and refusing to admit that her smoking caused her COPD.

Feedback from that was:

1. Slow down

2. Don't use phrases like, nothing to worry about

3. COPD is a progressive disease and is caused by smoking.

3. Prescribing: 4/7

I could have sworn I had failed this one, not helped by the way I basically swore my way through it. 

We were given some extra feedback about this station the night before last because it had gone so terribly for anyone. [Heard some horror stories, one of my friends actually wrote her own name and details instead of the patients details on the prescription is a particular favourite]

There was a particular issue with the way Tabphyn wasn't on the eBNF but was in the paper one and it just threw everyone so they have sworn that won't be an issue again.

Feedback was basically; yea act like a professional, 48 hour review date for antibiotics and you wrote Tabphyn in the wrong place.

4. Cardio History: 5/7

I really thought this was one of my better stations. Nailed that Pain History I thought.

Feedback was that I concentrated too heavily on HPC and didn't get to drug history, etc quickly enough. To avoid this in future I will make sure I write down the different parts.

5. Respiratory Exam: 5/7 

Again this is one I thought I would be doing a bit better on but the bit I faltered on here most was my actual clinical examination skills.

- Look up how to measure the treacheal deviation (I think I did this really badly, basically looking at the adams apple and skimming straight over it)

- Need to look up chest scars (well all scars for that matter)

- RR with pulse

6.Cardiac Failure History: 5/7

Couldn't remember for the life of me that orthopnoea = heart failure.

Feedback was only that I didn't get the correct diagnosis but had a good differential.

7. Data interpretion 4/7

I should have failed this one but I didn't even understand the station to be completely frank so just gonna let this one slide for noe.

8. Hyperthyroid 4/7

Another one I should have probably failed as I couldn't remember carbimazole.

- Need to check other symptoms patient is experiencing

- Need to know these medications

- Remember to ask about impact on life