"Integrated OSCE" study strategy

[steven1984]

Dear premed101'ers:

 

As some of you probably know, recently U of T has undergone a clerkship restructuring, so that now all the core rotations take place in 3rd year and everything else takes place in 4th year. As part of the restructuring, 2 new "integrated OSCE" exams are introduced, one at the midway point, and one at the end of 3rd year. The integrated OSCE at the end is scheduled for the two days from August 29 to August 30 of this year. It covers all core rotations from 3rd year: family medicine, pediatrics, psych, ob/gyn, surgery, anesthesiology, opthalmology, ENT, emergency medicine, internal medicine, with emphasis placed on the rotations that a student did in her most recent half-year, in an integrated fashion. Meaning that each station is not purely about one rotation, but draws on knowledge from two or more rotations and combines them in a comprehensive manner.

 

I am wondering if any of you ever studied for OSCEs like this before (as opposed to the end-of-rotation OSCEs that are just about that rotation). Do I have to know everything about every rotation? Or are there other approaches. Do the LMCCs contain OSCEs like these "integrated" ones?

 

Thanks a million.

[steven1984]

Addendum:

 

One piece of information I forgot to mention in the last post: rotations such as anesthesia, emerg and optho/ENT originally came without their own OSCEs, as such their materials are not particularly OSCE-friendly, unlike family medicine or psych.

 

Thanks.

[Lactic Folly]

Our school's end of 4th year OSCE, as well as LMCC II, consisted of a series of stations which covered all the core rotations, although each station was focused on a specific problem (as time is quite limited). So yes, I studied from the pool of possible OSCE stations for every rotation. I don't know if your question refers to the integration of more than one discipline within a single station.

[steven1984]

Thanks lactic folly for your reply. Yes, I am referring to the integration of more than one discipline within a single station, such as 'family medicine + ob/gyn' or 'family medicine + ob/gyn + psych' stations.

 

However, I am intrigued about your "I studied from the pool of possible OSCE stations for every rotation" comment, so there are pool of OSCE scenarios even for anesthesia, ophtho and ENT?

[Lactic Folly]

Well, at the medical student and LMCC level, the OSCE stations are intended to cover scenarios that all general practitioners of medicine should be familiar with, so in some sense they all fall under family medicine, and often more than one field (is postpartum depression family med, or ob/gyn, or psych? is otitis media family med, peds, or ENT?). And there are many possible OSCE stations that fall under ER.

 

Your school may differ, but for our core rotations that had OSCEs, we were given a long list of all possible scenarios to study for. So, no, I don't have pools of scenarios for the shorter rotations that don't typically have OSCEs, but you can try looking at various clinical examination prep books and try to anticipate what stations could potentially come up. Again, there is a lot of overlap between fields, and they will be testing general, not subspecialty level knowledge.

[steven1984]

Thanks Lactic Folly. I found your information very helpful.

[Lactic Folly]

pleasure