The Royal Free and University College Medical School experience of serious concerns forms during final year assessments

Poster presentation at AME conference 2008 Background The Royal Free & University College Medical School (RUMS) introduced a ‘serious concern’ form into their final year OSCE’s in June 2005. It was introduced to try to identify problems that a standard OSCE mark sheet might not clearly identify e.g. professionalism. Prior to each examination, examiners are briefed how to complete the forms and given examples of areas of concern that we would like included. Each form is discussed at the panel of examiners meeting and the area of concern either rejected or upheld. Any student who has three accepted forms is automatically failed; one student was failed for this reason in June 2007. All students who have a form upheld receive feedback on the problem with their performance. Methods We reviewed the number and types of problems identified and categorised them using 5 themes (knowledge, communication skills, professionalism, technical skill, and overall synthesis). The 3 serious concerns forms received by the student who failed due to these forms were then reviewed separately. Results Since June 2005, 159 forms have been completed with numbers rising from 59 in 2005 to 110 in 2007. Over 50% of all the comments were categorised as professionalism, with this category being most common in all examinations. The student who received 3 serious concern forms had multiple comments recorded; the majority of them were again related to professionalism. Conclusion At The Royal Free & University College Medical School, professionalism is the most common reason for students receiving a serious concern form in their final year OSCE’s. The introduction of this form has helped identify students deficient in this area ensuring that our assessments test all areas of a student’s fitness to practice.