An Audit of the Medical Students’ Perceptions regarding Objective Structured Clinical Examination

To record the perceptions of the final year MBBS students of Khyber Medical College (KMC) Peshawar regarding Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) conducted in the year 2016. Materials and Methods.This study was conducted in April 2016 which is in fact a reaudit of our similar survey done back in 2015. A total of 250 final year MBBS students participated by filling in a validated and pretested questionnaire already used by Russel et al. and Khan et al. in similar but separate studies including questions regarding exam content, quality of performance, OSCE validity and reliability, and so forth. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. Results.The study group comprised 160 (64%) males and 90 (36%) females. 220 (88%) stated that exam was fair and comprehensive; 94% believed OSCE was more stressful and mentally tougher. 96% of the students considered OSCE as valid and reliable and 87% were happy with its use in clinical competence assessment. Conclusion. Majority of students declared their final year OSCE as fair, comprehensive, standardized, less biased, and reliable format of examination but believed it was more stressful and mentally tougher than traditional examination methods.