BackgroundThe number of medical students accepted into medical programs is increasing, which has made the traditional long/short case style of examination difficult to conduct. At Dammam University, the program is shifting to the use of the Objective Structural Clinical Examination (OSCE), which may solve some of these difficulties, including issues with reliability, validity index and exam duration.ResultsA pilot study was conducted over one semester. A total of 207 examinees in three groups took the OSCE and written exams. The OSCE consisted of 18 clinical stations and required 3–4.3 h/day. The written exam contained 80 multiple-choice questions. The Cronbach’s alpha for each group was 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9. Correlations for all stations ranged from 0.7 to 0.8, which indicated good stability and internal consistency with minor differences in the progression of the indexes. The reliability of the written exam was 0.79, and the validity of the OSCE was 0.63, as assessed using Pearson’s correlation.ConclusionNo single reliability index can be considered a perfect assessment tool to solve this issue. Thus, at least two to three indexes should be used to ensure the reliability of the OSCE.

ObjectiveTo determine the functional morbidity and mortality after fragility hip fracture and compare the mortality with three other common diseases.MethodsData were collected from patients admitted to King Fahd Hospital of the University, AlKhobar from January 2010 to December 2014. Demographic data included the preoperative American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score as assessed by the anesthetist and the type of surgery. Personal and telephone interviews were performed, and data were entered into a database and analyzed.ResultsWe identified 203 patients with fragility proximal femoral fractures, and the data of 189 patients (109 male, 80 female; average age, 66.90 ± 13.43 years) were available for analysis. The overall mortality rate was 26.98% (51 patients). The mortality rate was significantly higher among patients with an ASA score of 4 (36.36%) than 1 (20.45%). With respect to morbidity, only 48.23% of patients were able to return to their pre-fracture status; 32.35% of those who required assisted walking and 83.4% of those who required a wheelchair became bedridden.ConclusionsOur data demonstrate that patients with fragility hip fractures have high morbidity and a mortality rate approaching 30%. Age and the ASA score significantly influence this high mortality rate.

Background: One of the most important objectives for University of Dammam is to send competent graduated physicians into the society, which cannot be accomplished without assessments of the clinical skills of the students. The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) was recently implemented to improve the quality, reliability, validity, university standards, and international rankings, and to decrease time consumption by the exams.