---
title: "OSCEs across professions: medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary, physical therapy and psychology"
description: "How seven health professions use the OSCE, from medicine and nursing to veterinary and psychology: what stays constant and what each field changes."
canonical: https://studydrome.com/docs/osce/foundations/osce-across-professions/
updated: 2026-09-25
---

# OSCEs across professions: medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary, physical therapy and psychology

How seven health professions use the OSCE, from medicine and nursing to veterinary and psychology: what stays constant and what each field changes.

The OSCE began in medicine in 1975. It now runs in at least seven health professions. The design rules are the same for everyone: the same task, wide sampling, and scoring by a trained observer. What changes are the task list, the patient or client, the regulator's rules, and the station types. This page shows what stays constant across professions and what each field adapts.

## Why a lead should look across professions

Most OSCE guidance is written for medicine. A nursing, pharmacy, or veterinary program that reads only its own field misses two things. The first is that the quality metrics travel. A chiropractic program replicated the AMEE metrics for its OSCE. It found them as useful there as in medicine. The second is that other fields have solved problems yours may not have met. Veterinary programs run stations on animals and on cadaver tissue. Nursing regulators run the exam in a simulated ward. Pharmacy boards test counseling with simulated clients. Each is an idea worth borrowing.

## What stays the same in every profession?

Four things do not change when the OSCE crosses a field line.

1. **The blueprint.** Every program maps its skills against its problems. It places stations in the cells. The list differs; the method does not.
2. **The station.** Candidate instructions, examiner notes, a patient or client brief, equipment and a scoring scheme. A veterinary station and a pharmacy station have the same parts.
3. **The metrics.** Reliability across stations, station statistics, and examiner comparison are computed the same way. Fields quote the same thresholds from the AMEE metrics guide.
4. **The people problem.** Every field reports examiner variation. Every field finds that training helps but does not remove it.

Anything on that list can be read from the medical literature and applied as is. The sections below cover what does change.

## How do medical OSCEs differ by country?

Medicine uses the OSCE in schools and in licensing. Licensing exams fix the format for a country and publish it. That makes them useful reference points for a school designing its own.

PLAB 2 is the UK licensing route for graduates from abroad. It runs a circuit of sixteen scenarios, each eight minutes long, with rest stations along the way. The UK's Medical Licensing Assessment has a clinical and professional skills part. Each school runs it. The regulator sets the areas it must cover and the quality checks it must show. It does not fix a single format. Taiwan runs a national clinical skills exam as a condition of licensure. Details change over time. A program should check the regulator's current page before citing a number.

In schools, the common pattern is a summative OSCE at the end of clinical training, often with 12 to 20 stations. Progress OSCEs, sat at several points in the course, are common too. So are formative OSCEs with feedback.

## What is different in nursing?

Nursing OSCEs test a mix of procedures, patient checks, medications, and patient communication. Regulators use the format for entry to the register as well as in schools.

The UK nursing regulator runs a competence test for nurses trained abroad. It is a good example of a regulator-designed OSCE. It runs a fixed set of ten stations in a simulated ward. The stations cover assessment, planning, care, and evaluation, as well as skills and values. The marking criteria are published. They include essential criteria. Miss one, and the station is failed, whatever else was done. A school designing a nursing OSCE can read those criteria as a model. They show how a regulator expects critical actions to be handled.

Nursing simulation standards also shape the exam. The INACSL standards of best practice set expectations for briefing, facilitation, debriefing and evaluation. So does the guidance for nurse practitioner simulations. Published work has tested the extent to which the OSCE's best-practice guidelines apply to nursing simulation. The answer is largely that they do.

## What is different in pharmacy?

Pharmacy OSCEs center on counseling, medicines review, checking scripts, calculation, and talking with patients. The other party is often a simulated client rather than a simulated patient. The encounter is about the medicine more than the symptom.

The Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada includes an OSCE as the second part of its qualifying exam. It presents a series of stations with simulated patients, clients, or colleagues. It adds stations with no actor, where the candidate works from written information. That mix is typical of pharmacy. A large share of the skill list is technical. It can be sampled with no observer. Counseling and talking to other staff need one. Many pharmacy programs run an OSPE next to the OSCE for the technical share.

## What is different in dentistry?

Dental OSCEs test clinical reasoning, treatment plans, reading X-rays, and talking to patients. Hands-on procedures are tested more often on manikin heads and in separate clinical tests. The reason is practical. Many dental procedures cannot be reversed, so a simulated patient cannot be used. A manikin head station also takes longer than a normal circuit slot.

Dental programs have added to the standard-setting literature. Comparisons of Angoff-type methods and borderline regression in dental OSCEs are among the studies the scoring section of this guide draws on. A dental OSCE is therefore usually one part of a pair. The circuit covers reasoning and patient communication. A separate practical assessment covers procedures.

## What is different in veterinary medicine?

Veterinary programs face a patient who cannot answer questions and an owner who can. Stations use live animals for calm-handling tasks that the animals tolerate. Models and part-task trainers cover procedures. Cadaver tissue covers surgical skills. Simulated clients cover the owner talk. Hall and colleagues describe the practical setup of veterinary OSCEs in a tips article. The veterinary literature records three decades of use.

The welfare of live animals adds a limit no other field has. A station that uses an animal has to cap the number of repeats and provide rest. It needs a plan for an animal that becomes stressed. Veterinary nursing programs publish task booklets that list the practical skills their OSCEs sample. That is a useful model of a skills inventory for any profession.

## What is different in physical therapy and psychology?

Physical therapy OSCEs test the exam, handling, exercise plans, and patient teaching. The simulated patients can be examined and moved. The format transfers from medicine with little change. Physical therapy programs have also added to the examiner-training literature, including online frame-of-reference training.

Psychology is a newer adopter. A 2024 systematic review looked at the psychometric quality of OSCEs in psychology programs. It found the format in use for interviews, tests, and treatment skills. The reliability and validity evidence was on a par with other fields. The stations are heavy on talk. That suits video delivery, which matters for a field with many scattered placements.

## A summary by profession

| Profession | Typical station content | Patient or client | Field-specific feature |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Medicine | History, exam, procedures, talking, data | Simulated and real patients, manikins | National licensing OSCEs with published formats |
| Nursing | Checks, care plans, procedures, medicines, talking | Simulated patients, manikins, simulated ward | Regulator-run test of competence; essential criteria |
| Pharmacy | Counseling, medicines review, sums, script checks | Simulated clients and colleagues | Stations with and without an actor; OSPE alongside |
| Dentistry | Reasoning, treatment plans, X-rays, talking | Simulated patients, manikin heads | Procedures tested separately |
| Veterinary | Handling, exam, procedures, owner talk | Live animals, models, cadaver tissue, simulated clients | Animal welfare limits |
| Physical therapy | Exam, handling, exercise, teaching | Simulated patients | Strong examiner-training literature |
| Psychology | Interviews, tests, treatment | Simulated clients | Talk-heavy; suited to video |

## Limits of the cross-profession view

Two cautions. First, the numbers on this page describe formats at the time of writing. Licensing bodies revise their exams. A program that cites a station count or a duration should check it against the regulator's current document. Second, borrowing a station type is not borrowing its validity evidence. A nursing program that adopts a pharmacy-style station with no actor still has two things to show. The station samples a nursing skill, and its scores behave.

## Frequently asked questions

### Do all health professions use OSCEs?

Most do. Medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, physical therapy, and psychology all run OSCEs in schools. Several use them for licensing or registration. The design rules are the same in each. What differs is the skill list, the patient or client at the station, and the station types the field's procedures need.

### How many stations does a nursing OSCE have?

It depends on the purpose. The UK regulator's test of competence for nurses trained abroad uses a fixed set of ten stations in a simulated ward. School-run summative OSCEs in nursing vary more widely. The reliability evidence sets the floor for a summative exam. It is the same for nursing as for medicine.

### Can an OSCE be used for a licensing decision?

Yes, and several regulators do that. PLAB 2 in the UK, the pharmacy qualifying exam in Canada, and the UK nursing test of competence all include OSCE-format parts. Licensing OSCEs tend to have fixed formats, published marking criteria, and national standard setting.

### What is an OSPE and which professions use it?

An OSPE, or objective structured practical exam, applies the circuit format to lab and technical skills. Its stations are often unobserved. Pharmacy and the basic sciences use it most. It samples technical skill cheaply. It cannot score communication or process, so programs run it next to an observed OSCE.

### Do OSCE quality metrics work outside medicine?

Yes. A chiropractic program replicated the metrics from the AMEE guide. That included the link between checklist and global rating and the variation between groups. It found them as informative as in medicine. Reliability coefficients and station statistics are arithmetic on scores. They apply wherever the format is used.

## Sources

**Sources**

1. [Hall EJ, Baillie S, Hunt JA, et al. Practical tips for setting up and running OSCEs](https://doi.org/10.3138/jvme-2022-0003) (Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, 2023)
2. [Nursing and Midwifery Council. Test of competence: preparation materials and marking criteria](https://www.nmc.org.uk/registration/joining-the-register/toc/) (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2024)
3. [General Medical Council. PLAB 2 guide](https://www.gmc-uk.org/registration-and-licensing/join-the-register/plab/plab-2-guide) (General Medical Council, 2025)
4. [Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada. Qualifying Examination Part II (OSCE)](https://www.pebc.ca/) (Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada, 2025)
5. [Measuring the quality of an objective structured clinical examination in a chiropractic program: a review of metrics](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11097219/) (PubMed Central, 2024)
6. [Vhora A, Davies RL, Rice K. The psychometric quality of OSCEs within psychology programs: a systematic review](https://doi.org/10.1177/14757257231196707) (Psychology Learning and Teaching, 2024)
7. [The objective structured clinical examination: three decades of development](https://doi.org/10.3138/jvme.33.4.571) (Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, 2006)
8. [OSCE best practice guidelines: applicability for nursing simulations](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5806284/) (PubMed Central, 2018)
9. [Pell G, Fuller R, Homer M, Roberts T. How to measure the quality of the OSCE: a review of metrics. AMEE Guide No. 49](https://doi.org/10.3109/0142159X.2010.507716) (Medical Teacher, 2010)

> [!NOTE]
> **In practice**
> Whatever the profession, the next step is the same. The planning section of this guide covers governance and the mapping to your regulator. The design section turns the skill list into a blueprint.