Medical Intern's Perception of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination of Surgery Courses in Babol University of Medical Sciences, Iran, in 2009-2013

Assessment of perceptions of the students undertaking different examinations is useful in the determination of the efficacy of evaluation methods in medical education. The aim of this study is to assess the attitude of medical interns of Babol University of Medical Sciences, Iran, about objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) in surgery during the years 2009-2013.

This was a descriptive-analytic study. A researcher-made questionnaire was distributed among the students immediately after the final OSCE of the surgery course and their perception about the different aspects of this examination was assessed in the form of 5-point Likert scales. Data analysis was performed by Stata SE software. All values of P were considered significance if P < 0.05.

In 164 medical students who filled out the questionnaires, the frequency of satisfaction of students were: 46% with the examination location; 35.8% with the type of questions at each station; 39.7% with fairness and rationality of questions; and 29.4% with suitability of time allocated to stations; 35.4% with standardized patients (SP); 47.8% with supervisors; 62.3% anxiety effect; and 35.3% overall satisfaction with the examination was reported at high or very high level. Overall satisfaction of students had a significant relationship with anxiety, examination location, type and fairness of the questions, time allocated to stations, functions of SPs and supervisors (P < 0.05).

Overall, these students perceived the OSCE as a suitable method to assess their clinical skills. Surgery is an important and critical course in the training of medical students and accurate evaluation of clinical competences of trainees in this course should be performed with appropriate examinations like OSCE. Therefore, continuous quality improvement of these exams, effective feedback to the students, and implementation of educational workshops for them during the course can be useful.