WebOSCE was developed by Dennis Novack, MD, and Christof
Daetwyler, MD, at the Drexel
University College of Medicine with generous
funding provided by Barbara E. Chick '59, MD. WebOSCE is
copyrighted 2007 by Drexel University College of Medicine, Patent Pending.
What is WebOSCE?
The golden standard to assess clinical skills – including communication skills – is by means of an OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Exam). During such exams, the students perform on Standardized Patients (SP), who then grade the students using a checklist. WebOSCE is a novel system that employs Internet technology to make this process independent having the students being in one room with the SP – using video chat – plus it provides the student with a recording of the interaction. Additionally, after the session the student is provided with a structured feedback to make best use of the WebOSCE as a learning experience.
In the summer and fall of 2007, we conducted a research project with
more than 80 interns to study the effectiveness of WebOSCE to measure
the skills needed in the "giving of bad news". We'll publish
the results in late summer 2008.
