Perception of Final Year Medical Students about Objective Structured Clinical Examination in the Department of General Surgery.

UNLABELLED Background -Assessment of clinical skills of medical students has a central role in medical education yet the suit- able evaluation methods have persistently debated by educators and students. OBJECTIVES To assess perceptions of final year medical students about the Organized Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE) METHODS AND MATERIALS: A cross sectional study was performed to assess views of final year medical students who had taken the OSCE in the Department of Surgery of Mekelle University College of Health Sciences, as well as other traditional exam formats in other departments in the medical school. RESULTS Of the 154 students who took the final qualifying exam, 127 (82.5%) responded to the survey. Eighty-four (66%) of the respondents were males. The OSCE was considered as the best assessment method of practical exams by 70 (55.1%) of the respondents, with the conventional long exam next in preference, by 47 (37%) students. For questions addressing the advantages of the OSCE, the average favorability score was between 4.2 - 4.6 out of Likert's type 5-point scale rating. Coverage of common and relevant topics, uniform student assessment, and communication skill assessment were items receiving high favorability scores by a particularly high percentage of students, (96.9%, 95.3% and 70.9% of all students, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Most of the students favored the OSCE compared to conventional exam styles. Though the study should be confirmed. and extended in other settings, we recommend OSCE to be the main exam type for clinical year surgery examinations.