Recently, the clinical skills assessment of Shanghai - Ottawa Joint School of Medicine was successfully held in Skills Training Center of Renji Hospital. This assessment was the first large-scale operational exam conducted by the Joint School of Medicine after one year of lecture using the PSD (Physical Skills Development) module of the North American Medical Course System.

 

 The exam used the OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) type of examination, which tests the clinical skills of medical students through the simulation of clinical scenes and pays equal attention to knowledge, skills and attitudes. The exam is divided into ten test stations, based on the assessment criteria of University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine. The test items involved the whole content that the students learned during the PSD module course in the first year. The exam is held on the 4th floor in the newly completed Skills Training Center of Shanghai - Ottawa Joint School of Medicine, and became the first show of the Training Center after the completion!

 

 The assessment attached great importance by the two sides of the teaching management departments. As a very important clinical skills training course in the curriculum system of the Joint School of Medicine, the PSD teaching module breaks the traditional mode of independent teaching of clinical diagnostics and adopts a parallel teaching method with unit module which interspersed in the weekly course. This first year of the clinical skills assessment will be a good reflection of the teaching mode for both teaching effectiveness and student acceptance, and has important significance to the improvement of both the medical students’ clinical operational skills and the follow-up teaching model.

 

 From the end of 2016, the Joint School of Medicine set up an OSCE exam preparation team, led by Head of Canadian Teaching Management Department at Joint School of Medicine Ms. Diane, Director of Teaching Quality Monitoring Department at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine Dr. James Chan, Director of Clinical Skills Training Center of Shanghai-Ottawa Joint School of Medicine Jieping Xu, the training coordinator Aiping Su, the project manager of Joint School of Medicine Yi Li and the principal of PSD course Xiao Liang. According to the requirements of professional medical assessments of both sides, the preparation team regularly held OSCE exam preparation conference and jointly developed scoring standards in each OSCE test station of Joint School of Medicine. Through remote video observation, they understood the layout requirements and rotation process of OSCE test station in University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine. At the same time, according to the assessment arrangements they conducted convene and trains of examiners, standardized patients training, standardized arrangements of test stations and debugged all video equipments. One month before the exam, a simulation test of the test process further ensured that all the details of the assessment process were debugged in place.

 

 On June 2rd, the exam came into the countdown, and all the examiners and volunteers embattled very early. Executive Vice President of Shanghai - Ottawa Joint School of Medicine Li Shao, Associate President of the Faculty of Clinical Medicine Qing Zheng, and Head of Canadian Teaching Management Department at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine Ms. Diane, and Director of Teaching Quality Monitoring Department at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine Dr. James Chan, also visited the assessment room.

 

 With the clock pointed to 13:30, the first batch of candidates stood in place in front of the test stations, and began for the 5 hours of exam! Professionally trained standardized patients (SP) were the objects for history collection and physical assessment in each 10-minute-exam per station, who have prepared standardized scripts in advance to ensure the quality of the exam. During the exam, the examiner meticulously and critically graded according to the scoring criteria, and gave the candidates two minutes of feedback after the end of the operation, which is rare in the domestic OSCE exam, but is a very important part of this exam.

 

 Through this exam, the medical students not only deepen their understanding of knowledge and exercise of skills, but also enhance their loyalty to the career of doctor. After the exam, there are candidates can not help but lament: I finally felt the meaning of being a doctor today! In the subsequent teaching, the Joint School of Medicine will make further improvements of the content and form of OSCE exam, based on the feedback of the exam, hoping that medical students get a greater reward through the 1-2 times of such exam every year! (Correspondent Aiping Su and Yi Li / Translator Weiwei Zhang)