Disembodied, dehumanised but safe and feasible: the social-spatial flow of a pandemic OSCE

Abstract

Introduction: The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is a key feature of healthcare education assessment. Many aspects of the OSCE are well-investigated, but not so its sociomaterial assemblage. The Covid-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity to (re)consider taken-for-granted OSCE practices. Drawing on Law's modes of ordering, our aim was to demonstrate the ‘mangle of practice’ between space and people; the spatialised and spatialising processes of an OSCE. Methods: We used a case study approach to critically examine a redesigned final year MBChB OSCE held during the pandemic. We used multiple sources of data to attune to human and non-human actors: OSCE documentation, photographs, field notes and semi-structured interviews with OSCE staff/organisers. Law's modes of ordering was used as an analytical lens to critically consider how people and things flowed through the adapted OSCE. Findings: The overarching ordering was the delivery of a ‘pandemic safe’ OSCE. This necessitated reordering of ‘usual’ process to deliver a socially distanced, safe flow of human and non-human actors through the assessment space. Each change had material and social ‘knock on’ effects. We identified three main interrelated orderings: Substituting technologies for bodies: Disembodied and dehumanised but feasible; Flow through space: Architectural affordances and one-way traffic; Barriers to flow: Time and technology. Discussion: Looking at the OSCE through a sociomaterial lens allows us to critically examine the OSCE's essential and complex processes and the restrictions and affordances of the spaces and props within the OSCE. In doing so, we open the possibility of considering alternative ways of doing OSCEs in the future. Moreover, conceptualising the OSCE as a living set of socially (human) and materially (nonhuman) enacted processes changes the social perception of the OSCE and highlights that an OSCE has agency on people, places and things.