OSCE practice for medical students and foreign-trained doctors

Station length and the number of stations differ between schools and examining bodies, so check your own exam's format. Some licensing exams use OSCE-style or long and short case examinations in their clinical part: the MDCN's assessment exam for foreign-trained graduates is one example.

• History taking: a patient or actor gives a history while you structure the conversation.
• Physical examination: for example abdominal, cardiovascular, respiratory or neurological examination.
• Procedures and practical skills: such as measuring blood pressure, taking blood or interpreting an ECG.
• Communication: breaking bad news, counselling, obtaining consent.
• Data interpretation: results, imaging or a prescription chart, often followed by short questions.

1. Read the instruction outside the door. Note the task, the time and what you are not asked to do.
2. Open well: wash your hands, introduce yourself, confirm the patient's name and age, explain what you will do and ask for consent.
3. Position and expose the patient appropriately, and ask about pain before you touch.
4. Work through the task in a fixed order that you have rehearsed, and say what you are doing as you go so the examiner can score it.
5. Close well: thank the patient, cover them, wash your hands, and summarise your findings or plan.
6. Use any remaining time to give a short summary, a differential diagnosis and next steps if asked, without waiting for the examiner to prompt you.

• Practise with a partner and a checklist. One person plays the patient, the other examines, and a third scores. Swap roles.
• Time yourself. Many candidates run out of time on examination stations, not on knowledge.
• Practise out loud. Presenting a case fluently is a skill that reading does not build.
• Record yourself on a phone and watch for missed steps, filler words and rushing.
• Ask for feedback on communication as well as technique. Examiners award marks for both.

• Skipping the opening and closing steps, which are the easiest marks on the checklist.
• Examining without exposing or positioning the patient properly.
• Staying silent. If you do not say it or show it, it cannot be scored.
• Spending the whole station on one part of the task and never reaching the rest.
• Using jargon with the patient instead of plain language.