Impact of a 3-day OSCE workshop on Iraqi physicians.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Following a severe hardship for the past 4 decades, the Iraqi Ministry of Health initiated many activities to enhance the knowledge and skills of health professionals. The American University of Beirut was approached to deliver a workshop to update the skills of Iraqi physicians in constructing an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE).

METHODS

This is a descriptive study of the 3-day workshop delivered to Iraqi physicians as train the trainer. The participants were given reading material and participated in interactive hands-on exercises. Performance was determined by direct observation of participants performing a mock OSCE. Pretests and posttests were conducted to assess change in knowledge.

RESULTS

The participants demonstrated a significant improvement in their mean score of the posttest in comparison to pretest (8.6 versus 6.4, respectively). Moreover, they revealed mastery of the OSCE in the final mock OSCE activity. The participants highly evaluated the workshop and were positive in their future ability to conduct an OSCE.

CONCLUSIONS

Adopting an interactive hands-on workshop to train the trainer is feasible and appears to be effective.