Journal of Orthodontics, Vol. 29, No. 2, 152,
June 2002
© 2002 British Orthodontic Society
Core Clinical Skills for OSCEs in Medicine
T. Dornan and P. O'Neill Churchill Livingstone, 2000 352 pp., Paperback, £14.95 ISBN 0443063664
M. G. Brennan
This book is one of a successful series from Churchill Livingstone. The authors are both well respected as both clinicians and medical educators; their credibility as medical teachers and examiners is evident on every page. This book is aimed at medical students, but may well prove useful to dental educators, clinical teachers in oral medicine and surgery, or dental students (especially those considering becoming doubly qualified). The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) has been around for a while as one of a battery of assessments, but it is only recently that most UK medical schools have introduced the OSCE to their curricula. A number of dental schools worldwide have also introduced OSCEs and this book will certainly stimulate thoughts on how this trend might be extended to other dental schools, vocational training schemes and other postgraduate courses.
The comprehensive contents list includes sections on specimen OSCEs, history-taking and examination skills, data interpretation, procedural and communication skills, and attitudes—all areas in which dental students are expected to display competence as much as their medical peers.
The medical systems approach featured in this book may not seem immediately relevant to dental students, but provides a good primer and adjunct for the teaching of medical components in most UK dental curricula.
The layout is clear and the authors compress a lot of useful information into 327 well-structured pages. Assessment is often the last element to change in any curriculum: as the General Dental Council is about to revise the First Five Years document, this book may well help dental educators to develop a structured examination that complements the educational innovations in many dental schools.
