Mental health training in Somaliland – Day 38

Today is the day for the OSCE examination. The students complete their post-course MCQ exam first thing and we leave the co-facilitators to collect papers, whilst myself, Mandip and Dr. Jibril, with the mental health reps Zainab and Abdirahman, go to practice the OSCE stations with the actors.

It is vital that we all standardize our marking, and also the acting, so that each student is fairly examined. We spend much time doing this and are pleased that our individual marks correlate with one another. We are joined by some 6^th year medical students who have kindly offered to volunteer their time to act as patients for the medical student exam.

This is also good practice for them, as through acting, one often learns more about the OSCE, what questions are asked, what sound good in an exam scenario and so on.

The whole day goes impeccably, with Aidrous, one of the 6^th years, acting as the most important figure of the day- the time-keeper. The students all turn up on time and thankfully all goes to plan. The evening is spent as a team, with the co-facilitators, marking the examinations and finally inputting data to our spreadsheet. With 68 students, this is a mammoth task and we are so thankful for all the support and help. We all finally end the day with a dinner together at Ray’s. The certificates are written just before bed, which means a late night!