Utility of OSLER for assessing enhancement of learning in postgraduate students

Background: Assessing the clinical acumen of the medical students both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels is a challenge faced by the medical teachers worldwide. For years knowledge and skills were being assessed using traditional long cases and short cases. Structuring the long case, like Objective Structured Long Examination Record (OSLER) can help improve the reliability of the long case.

 

Method: A six month interventional study was conducted in Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, JNMC, Wardha. It included, 12 first year and 12 second year postgraduate students, who were subjected to two OSLER interventions at interval of one month giving a total sample size of 48 OSLER assessments.

 

Result: It was observed that the scores obtained by the students, had improved significantly in the 2nd OSLER intervention as compared to the 1st OSLER intervention. For the first year postgraduate students the mean scores were 48.33 in the 1st encounter as compared to 60.83 in the 2nd encounter. For the second year postgraduate students, the means scores were 53.75 in the 1st encounter and 65.41 in the 2nd encounter. The ‘P’ value was found to be 0.0001 which was statically significant.

 

Conclusion: OSLER can be used effectively for testing and for assessing the enhancement of learning and clinical acumen of postgraduate students. Interventions done regularly can go a long way in improving the clinical skills of the students.