Assessing nurse practitioner students using a modified objective structured clinical examination (OSCE)

Limitations of applying the traditional final medical examination for the assessment of clinical competence of nurse practitioners are a matter of concern. This paper discusses a modified Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) to assess physical examination skills of student nurse practitioners at Bournemouth University. This assessment was developed to standardize the evaluation of examining skills by using healthy volunteers from the student body as patients. This modified OSCE can be used as an assessment tool for formative and summative assessment, as a resource for learning, as a basis for abbreviated versions of physical examination assessments and to identify gaps and weaknesses in clinical skills. The emphasis, therefore, is not only on the product but also the process. The Bournemouth experience may be of interest to other organizations that are developing OSCEs for formative and summative purposes in nurse practitioner education.