OSCE

Since starting med school, I've been asked many questions about the process of school and about what I do every day. Now that I have some sweet, sweet freedom for the next couple months, I thought that now would be the time to answer those burning questions that y'all have in an ongoing series of blogs. This one is about something that I get to go through periodically as part of my training: OSCEs.

OSCE (pronounced ah-skee) stands for objective structured clinical examination. They usually last 15 minutes with 10 minutes afterward to record what happened while we were in there. My school has a corridor that has 10 examination rooms that are set up just like you would find in a doctor's office. I am all alone in the room with my patient, but there is a camera and a microphone in there too so that I can be graded.

They are essentially fake encounters that I have with a real patient that happens to be acting out their problem. I get all dressed up in my snazzy white coat, wrap my stethoscope around my shoulders, and then act like I know what I'm talking about to my "patient". Before going into one of these, you have no clue what the actor (called a "standardized patient" or SP) is going to be complaining of. Naturally there is a fair amount of anxiety before doing one of these. The unknown is unnerving. The patient could complain of anything! Luckily for me, the cases haven't been too complex. The preceptors do try to make it funny sometimes. For instance, I got to treat one Whoopie Goldberg, a middle-aged white woman followed by a Jack Sparrow, a sober older gentleman. It was quite the afternoon.

So in the future, if you have any questions about the process of med school or whatever, let us know and we'll do our best to answer them. Until next time!