Dr Andrea Ang, House Officer, MOHH, shares her experience in developing a qualitative research project under the guidance of A/Prof Tay Sook Muay, Department of Surgical Intensive Care, SGH.
When Jayne and I first entered medical school, we were amazed by the strong sense of senior-junior mentorship within the school. We were fortunate to have seniors who were willing to take time out of their busy schedules to organise lectures, briefings and tutorials for us. As we progressed through the years, it soon became our turn to carry the deed forward for our own juniors.
We recalled that the acquisition of physical examination (PE) skills had been difficult for us. As such, the idea of a near-peer-led Year 2 Practice Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) was conceived, with the aim of exploring whether it could better help year 2 students learn and gain confidence in their PE skills.
Jayne and I brainstormed on gaps within the school’s curriculum that we could fill, and remembered the challenges we faced as year 2 students crossing the bridge from “pre-clinicals” to “clinicals”. In particular, we recalled that the acquisition of physical examination (PE) skills had been difficult for us. As such, the idea of a near-peer-led Year 2 Practice Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) was conceived, with the aim of exploring whether it could better help year 2 students learn and gain confidence in their PE skills.
We thus organised a mock OSCE for fifty-nine second year students in April 2019. These students were taught and tested on cardiovascular, abdominal, neurological, thyroid, breast, and arterial system PEs. Students rotated through the stations in pairs, taking turns to be candidates and standardised patients (SPs). We also trained six near-peer tutors comprising fourth-year, fifth-year students and one junior doctor to be the assessors.
Our post-event questionnaire found that all respondents agreed the mock OSCE was useful for learning PE skills, with 80% agreeing strongly. Interestingly, while all respondents found being a candidate useful, 8% disagreed that being an SP value-added, and 20% found practising on SPs inadequate in learning PE skills. This suggested to us that students may prefer playing an active role in learning PE skills. Finally, we found that the majority of respondents (44%) ranked senior medical students (fourth and fifth year) as their most-preferred assessor, over senior doctors (27%), junior doctors (16%) and immediate seniors (third-year students) (12%).
This preference for near-peer senior students may stem from their ability to create safe learning environments while also having accumulated adequate clinical experience. In conclusion, we found that near-peer-led mock OSCEs can serve as effective platforms for junior medical students to learn PE skills.
This preference for near-peer senior students may stem from their ability to create safe learning environments while also having accumulated adequate clinical experience. In conclusion, we found that near-peer-led mock OSCEs can serve as effective platforms for junior medical students to learn PE skills. This could be further augmented by incorporating active learning roles and having near-peer tutors as assessors. We hope to conduct future studies to quantify the effectiveness of this initiative through comparative pre-and post-test scores, and focused group discussions to explore reasons underlying the preference for the above findings.
This is the first qualitative research project that Jayne and I have undertaken. Not only did we learn about the proceedings of a qualitative research study, the findings of the study itself also cemented the rich benefits of near-peer teaching within our minds, and gave us greater insight into learner preferences. Moving forward, we hope to be able to continue similar near-peer mentorship projects for future juniors under our care.
Team Members: Andrea Ang Jing Shi, Chan Hui Zhen Jayne, Chua Yee Shuen Darren, Foo Qi Xuan Joel
Supervising Mentor: A/Prof Tay Sook Muay