Does the gender of the standardised patient influence candidate performance in an objective structured clinical examination?

Context: The objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) requires the use of standardised patients (SPs). Recruitment of SPs can be challenging and factors assumed to be neutral may vary between SPs. On stations that are considered gender-neutral, either male or female SPs may be used.

Resident evaluations: the use of daily evaluation forms in rheumatology ambulatory care.

Objective: The in-training evaluation report (ITER) is widely used to assess clinical skills, but has limited validity and reliability. The purpose of our study was to assess the feasibility, validity, reliability, and effect on feedback of using daily evaluation forms to evaluate residents in ambulatory rheumatology clinics.

Methods: An evaluation form was developed based on the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada CanMEDS roles.

Why do physicians volunteer to be OSCE examiners?

Recruitment of physician examiners for an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) can be difficult. The following study will explore reasons why physicians volunteer their time to be OSCE examiners. A questionnaire was collected from 110 examiners including a fourth year formative student OSCE (SO) (n=49), formative internal medicine OSCE (IM) (n=21) and the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Exam Part II (MCCQE II) (n=40).

Teaching the musculoskeletal examination: are patient educators as effective as rheumatology faculty?

Background: Effective education of clinical skills is essential if doctors are to meet the needs of patients with rheumatic disease, but shrinking faculty numbers has made clinical teaching difficult. A solution to this problem is to utilize patient educators.

Purpose: This study evaluates the teaching effectiveness of patient educators compared to rheumatology faculty using the musculoskeletal (MSK) examination.