Team Objective Structured Bedside Assessment (TOSBA): a novel and feasible way of providing formative teaching and assessment

Med Teach. 2007 Mar;29(2-3):156-9. doi: 10.1080/01421590701287889.

Abstract

It can be challenging to teach and assess medical students successfully in the setting of a hospital ward using real patients. We describe a novel method of providing weekly formative clinical assessment and teaching to final year students on an acute medical ward: The Team Objective Structured Bedside Assessment (TOSBA). The TOSBA involves three groups of five students rotating through three ward-based stations (each station consists of an inpatient and facilitator). Each group spends 25 minutes at a bedside station where the facilitator asks consecutive students to perform one of five clinical tasks. Every student receives a standardised grade and is provided with educational feedback at each of the three stations. We report our 15-month experience using the TOSBA format to assess and teach a large number of medical students on a weekly basis. We discuss the advantages and potential drawbacks of our approach.

Publication types

  • Evaluation Study

MeSH terms

  • Education, Medical, Undergraduate*
  • Educational Measurement / methods*
  • Educational Measurement / standards
  • Feasibility Studies
  • Feedback, Psychological
  • Hospitals, Teaching*
  • Humans
  • Patients*
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Teaching* / standards