Creating Objective Structured Clinical Exams (OSCEs) or Objective
Structured Practical exams (OSPEs) exercises in Clinical Toxicology can
be overwhelming, but the benefits of this kind of practice-based
learning and assessment for future health care practitioners and their
future patients, make them work definitely worth doing. They are
important educational tools for high-quality teaching (formative
assessments) as well as for the evaluation of basic and advanced
clinical skills (summative assessments). Licensing and accrediting
organizations around the world have embraced OSCEs and OSPEs. For
example, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education
(ACGME) in the United States has recommended them as key components of
their assessment Tool-box(ACGME/ ABMS). The US National Board of Medical
Examiners(NBME) implements OSCE-type assessments as part of
licensure(USMLE- part2). Recently Indian Medical Council-MCI has
incorporated OSCE & OSPE in undergraduate MBBS curriculum for Competency
Based Medical Education (CBME) in India. Organizing an OSCE is a major
undertaking and, as with most other educational projects, requires
strong and committed leadership & and good teamwork.
