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The article discusses on Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE) for medical students in the U. S. An OSCE is an assessment format in which the students rotate around a circuit of stations usually involving a clinical skills. In setting up an OSCE, determine first on what should be assessed. The clinical tasks chosen for the OSCE should map onto the learning objectives of the course and the candidate's level of learning.

Background: With a growing number of Spanish-speaking patients in the United States, it is crucial for clinicians to communicate effectively with their patients. However, the number of Spanish-speaking clinicians is disproportionately low. Our module aims to provide healthcare students with a practical foundation of basic Spanish for taking vital signs. We evaluated this module's impact on student knowledge acquisition and self-perceived confidence in taking vitals in Spanish through pre- and post-module assessments., Approach: Our 7-h hybrid educational module comprised two in-person sessions with pre- and post-session assignments. Through the module, students learned grammar, vocabulary and cultural principles before practising speaking skills through team-based learning in small groups led by bilingual facilitators., Evaluation: Seventy-nine of the 98 originally enrolled students completed the module. Students completed pre- and post-module surveys to gauge knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, comprehension and cultural understanding in addition to measuring self-reported confidence levels using a 5-point Likert scale. A Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to analyse the difference between the tests with p < 0.05 representing statistical significance. Students showed statistically significant improvement in all tested domains as well as in self-confidence reporting even after controlling for prior Spanish exposure and Hispanic ethnicity. Students who had prior exposure to Spanish showed a greater increase in confidence reporting vital signs in Spanish., Implications: With a need for more Spanish-proficient clinicians, medical education institutions in the United States will seek to augment trainee exposure to and competence in Spanish. This module provided an effective environment for healthcare students to learn and practice medical Spanish., (© 2025 Association for the Study of Medical Education and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Transgender individuals are discriminated against in health care environments and consistently experience poorer health outcomes than their cisgender counterparts. Enhancing physician training in transgender‐specific health is critical to closing the transgender health gap. Methods: We conducted a scoping review to identify transgender health training objectives in Internal Medicine and Internal Medicine Subspecialty residency programmes in Canada and the United States. A systematic search was conducted from 1946 to 15 February 2022. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they were written in English, included transgender training objectives, and were aimed at resident physicians in Internal Medicine or Internal Medicine Subspecialty training programmes in Canada or the United States. Findings: We found 4048 papers, of which 11 were included for analysis. Transgender health training objectives were synthesised into five themes, including (1) terminology, physiology, and gender presentation, (2) gender‐affirming care and communication, (3) hormonal and surgical management, (4) routine health management and maintenance, and (5) equity, diversity, and inclusion in clinical care. The majority of objectives pertained to equity, diversity, and inclusion in clinical care, namely, respectful communication and non‐judgemental care of transgender patients. Discussion Our findings provide a comprehensive overview of published transgender health objectives in Canada and the United States and highlight existing gaps in postgraduate medical education for Internal Medicine and Subspecialty programmes. Conclusions: We argue a need for standardisation of transgender‐related residency training and suggest that postgraduate Internal Medicine programmes can utilise this review as a framework to begin enhancing transgender health education for their residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the mini Clinical Evaluation Exercise or mini-CEX, a method for simultaneously assessing the clinical skills of trainees and offering feedback on their performance, recounts on how it was developed and illustrates its use in the Modernizing Medical Careers Foundation Program Assessment in the U. S. The validity and reliability of mini-CEX is derived by observing the trainees while engaged with a series of real patients in different practice setting and judgments about the quality of the encounter made by skilled educator-clinicians. Its educational effects are based on a significant increase in the number of occasions on which trainees are directly observed with patients and offered feedback on their performance.

The article presents the author's experience of an interview given by him for a medical school. Topics discussed include the racial prejudice suffered by the author during the interview, the unconscious bias in the admission process of medical schools in the U.S., and the measures taken by the schools to remove the bias. Also mentioned is the Implicit Attitudes Test taken by the Ohio State University College of Medicine (OSUCOM).

Background: In 2008 there were 262 episodes of incorrect blood component transfusion. Safer Practice Notice 14, Right patient, right blood, introduced a mandatory requirement for all clinical staff involved in the blood transfusion process to be assessed against competencies developed on a national basis. It was recommended that the assessment should be an observed, formalised process. The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) produced an assessment framework, but this has never been validated. We developed the Nottingham Anaesthesia Transfusion OSCE (NATO). This consists of an interactive clinical scenario that examines the key aspects of transfusion medicine., Methods: After gaining informed consent, the NATO assessments of 12 anaesthetists were filmed. Three experienced assessors independently viewed the recorded material and scored the candidates. Cronbach's alpha was subsequently calculated. All participants were asked to complete a feedback form., Results: The pass rate during the study was 58 percent (7/12). Cronbach's alpha for NATO was 0.929. Seventy-five percent of candidates judged NATO to be a fair assessment of transfusion competency., Discussion: NATO allows the objectives detailed by the NPSA to be assessed formally in a format that is pertinent to anaesthetic practice. Internal reliability and face validity evaluation are the first steps in utility assurance of this assessment tool., (© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2011.)