Abstract: Objective Objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) was implemented as an evaluation tool for clerkship trainees of eight-year program of clinical medicine. Its effect was evaluated in order to provide reference for its application in clerkship. Methods Forty-nine medical students of 2017 grade who were trained in clerkship in Peking University First Hospital from June 2020 to January 2021 were involved in the examination. The examination was composed of 6 stations including 2 stations for clinical history taking, 2 stations for physical examination and 2 stations for essential skills. The effect of OSCE implementation was evaluated by the students' scores of OSCE, the degree of difficulty, the degree of discrimination, the reliability of OSCE and the students' questionnaire. Results The student's total score was [9.23(8.98,9.41)]. The overall difficulty was 0.087, discrimination was 0.126 and the Cronbach α of reliability was 0.739.There were 85.7%(42/49) of the students who considered that the overall design of the assessment was reasonable, and 91.8%(45/49) of them asked for feedback from examiners. The results also showed that 81.6%(40/49), 75.5%(37/49) and 85.7%(42/49) of the students believed that OSCE well evaluated the mastery of skills dealing with medical history taking, physical examination and essential clinical skills. Most students believed that it may promote competency building, especially communicator [93.9%(46/49)] and professional capacity [71.4%(35/49)]. However, only 16.3%(8/49) of the students were satisfied with their self-performance in OSCE. Conclusions OSCE is characterized by reliability, fair discrimination and low difficulty. The evaluation of the OSCE assessment design is fine, and the feedback from examiners of the examination is needed. The assessment effect is good and can promote competency; since students have a low evaluation of self-performance, it is necessary to provide more facilities and resources to support practical training in the future.

Key words: Objective structured clinical examination, Eight-year clinical medicine program, Medical students, Clerkship, Evaluation