Examination station descriptions
The format for the National Assessment Collaboration (NAC) Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) consists of 12 stations based on presentations of clinical scenarios. For a given administration, each candidate rotates through the same series of stations. Each station is 10 minutes in length with two minutes between stations.
At each station, a brief written statement introduces a clinical problem and outlines the candidate’s tasks (e.g. take a history, do a physical examination, etc.). In each station, there is at least one standardized patient and a physician examiner. Standardized patients have been trained to consistently portray a patient problem. Candidates should interact with standardized patients as they would with their own patients.
The physician examiner observes the patient encounter. For most stations, the candidate will be asked to respond to a series of standardized oral questions posed by the physician examiner after seven minutes with the standardized patient.
The examination includes a separate written test of candidates’ therapeutic knowledge. This component lasts 45 minutes and consists of 24 short-answer questions testing the candidates’ knowledge of therapeutics for patients across the age spectrum and related to pharmacotherapy, adverse effects, disease prevention and health promotion. The NAC provides examples of therapeutics questions.
