Sarintip Thongsiw¹
Piyaporn Sirijanchune¹
1 Medical Education Center, Chiangrai Prachanukroh hospital 

Previously the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) was the standard traditional assessment for the clinical performance of medical students which was limited in some aspects of reliability and validity. The alternative methods using the assessment with Assessment of Special Clinical Encounter (ASCE) replaced the OSCE for evaluation of the clinical skill. Both examinations are considered objective assessments of clinical practical skills. OSCE is a common method of assessing clinical competence in a simulated clinical environment consisting of multiple stations to perform specific clinical skills in a limited period. ASCE gathering multiple clinical skills with a mix of clinical problems assessments in each station required more periods of time. This study aims to assess using ASCE methods compared to standard traditional methods using OSCE. A cross-sectional study was conducted from June 2021 to June 2023. Structured questionnaires with brief interviews were used to survey. 103 medical students and 22 examiners participated in the study. From the survey 83% of the medical students were satisfied by the examination structure and organization with 93% of the ability of clinical competence evaluation. The examiner’s report 72% satisfied with the examinations and organization with 84% of the ability of clinical competence evaluation. However, the medical students reported 91% stressful with 74% flexibility of the ASCE. The examiner reported 80% of time from the long period of time in the ASCE. There was a positive perception of the ASCE in various aspects by medical students and the examiner. ASCE shows benefits for the assessment of the clinical performances of medical students. This study indicates that using ASCE for standard assessment of clinical performance is a practical assessment tool for the medical student's clinical competence. These could replace the traditional discipline based clinical examinations. Further development for using the ASCE for evaluation should be warranted. 

References (maximum three) 

1. Bevan J, Russell B, Marshall B. A new approach to OSCE preparation - PrOSCEs. BMC Med Educ. 2019;19(1):126. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-019-1571-5. 

2. Grover, S., Pandya, M., Ranasinghe, C. et al. Assessing the utility of virtual OSCE sessions as an educational tool: a national pilot study. BMC Med Educ 22, 178 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03248-3