[OSCE improves medical student's BLS knowledge, but its long-term memory is not well maintained].
BACKGROUND
Objective structured clinical examination: OSCE is now widely used in educational scene in medical schools before medical students start their clinical training. However, the utility of OSCE on BLS education has not been confirmed yet. The effect of OSCE on BLS education was examined using questionnaires.


METHODS
Questionnaires on knowledge of resuscitation were distributed to 166 medical school students (100 students in 1999 semester without OSCE, 66 in 2004 semester with OSCE). The questionnaire included 13 questions based on the 1992 or 2000 guidelines for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Six out of 12 questions were defined as "skill related questions" and the student who correctly answered all these "skill related questions" were thought to be competent for providing adequate BLS.


RESULTS
Competent student ratio was significantly higher in students with OSCE (48%, vs 20% without OSCE, P < 0.001). Thus OSCE was useful for medical student to establish BLS knowledge when compared with students without OSCE. However, this result also revealed that the acquired knowledge through OSCE did not last long. Although 98% of students actually passed OSCE, only half of them were competent on paper test during clinical training.


CONCLUSIONS
OSCE improved medical students' knowledge of BLS, but did not contribute to prevent forgetting for a long time. Thus, reeducation in BLS is still necessary for students after passing OSCE.
Suzuki
Akihiro
A
Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Asahikawa Medical College, Asahikawa 078-8510.
Kurosawa
Atsushi
A
Sasakawa
Tomoki
T
Tampo
Akihito
A
Yasuda
Shigeru
S
Iwasaki
Hiroshi
H
D000776:Anesthesiology / Q000193:education*; D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000193:education*; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D007564:Japan; D008020:Life Support Care