The OSCE -Exam Ordeal.

As they move past us, all clad in suits and proudly revealing their ‘cult-Post-Graduate Medical Council ties’, a very knowing fear shakes our hands and refuses to let go. Compulsively, we greet again and again...and yet again, but none takes notice. I surmise we are almost all saying, like the gladiators of Roman fame, “We who are about to die, hail thee, Caesars!”
On the queue, everyone tries to wear a smile. Everyone attempts to hide the tremors by swinging stethoscopes or bending tendon hammers. Three ladies stare at the mirrors, again and again, to make certain the powder is not in excess; another tugs at her well below-the-knee skirt just to be doubly sure.
image

The gauntlet starts at the first bell. Our hearts skip with each warning bell, “Huh...soooooo short???” The next bell swallows the next candidate...and so on. The line sees an entropy of a sort, everyone trying to gather some last second knowledge or reminders. The fellow before you has just gone in; you are next. Just then, the guy behind you runs off to empty his bladder for the umpteenth time. “Oops! Was that my bell??” The hour has come.
It’s pretty commonplace to have prayed against the many known risk factors viz, ‘The Non-modifiable’: The Hard-to please ‘Fuhrer’ examiner, the over-poked uncooperative patient. The ‘Modifiable’: The sleepy-head examiner, the phone-freak examiner, and the hungry ones, etc.

Between each station, your steps are humbled, wondering why the previous examiner ‘chose’ to tick your sheet only a few times. That in itself is depressing but wait for this: “There are over 500 causes of...............................List 10 only. List 10 this...Give me 10 that...” With such leads, it is not hard to tell why the stethoscope on the patient’s chest, at the next station, is actually picking up your own heartbeats.

image

You come out on the other side, all sweaty and deadbeat, trying to remember your “dids” and “didn’ts”. You are not alone, so it appears. You weren’t the worst. You are pretty consoled by the ‘woe-tales’ of others; thanking God that it wasn’t you who told the examiner at that “abdominal-station” that the liver span measured one-trouser-length!

#TalesOfAMedic