Is the communication OSCE a valid measure of medical students’ responsiveness to patient emotion?

Few studies have examined the transfer of medical students clinical communication skills from the simulated OSCE to patient consultations in Primary care. This is surprising given the centrality of the OSCE in the assessment of medical student communication skills, and consistent calls by researchers and educators to incorporate "authentic" patient encounters in research. Summary of work 37 medical students were videoed in their final 4th year communication OSCE. The same cohort was then also videoed in several patient consultations each (n=138) in the following 5th placement based year. All videoes were micro-coded to analyse medical students responses to patient emotional cues with the Verona Consensus Coding Scheme. Summary of results Medical students were consistently missing a significant proportion of simulated patient and patient emotional cues in both settings. A significant positive relationship (with a large effect size) was also found between medical students responsiveness to simulated patient emotional cues in the OSCE and patient emotional cues in Primary care. Conclusions The 4th year communication OSCE is a valid measure of medical students rsponsiveness to patient emotion in Primary care. Take-home message The communication OSCE cannot be a valid measure of medical students clinical communication without longitudinal analysis incorporating patient consultations.