What now and what next? The new era of OSCE

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all walks of life including the education sector. The suspension of on-campus activities within universities in the last few months, in the middle of a semester, allowed pharmacy educators to capitalise on existing technology in teaching and assessment. Objective structured clinical exams (OSCEs) which usually require a face-to-face assessment of skills, posed a special challenge to educators in the health profession including pharmacy. Several teleconference programmes have been trialed to conduct online or virtual OSCEs. Lack of resources and human workforce compelled faculty to utilise MyDispense, a web-based community pharmacy simulation programme, for conducting web-based OSCEs. The students agreed that this was an overall better learning experience compared to the traditional face-to-face OSCE. There is a need for a robust evaluation of these alternate methods of OSCE in contrast with traditional face-to-face OSCE. The accumulation of more literature is expected to be seen that would highlight the feasibility of the online or virtual OSCE capitalising on advancements in technology. This coupled with the emerging role of tele-pharmacy, and less complicated skills needing to be assessed in pharmacy education compared to nursing and medication education, could this method of OSCE be the future of pharmacy education?