OSCE Tips and Advice

I'd agree open questions are best, particularly in real consults it's just you can feel pressured in an OSCE and really need to get through things to refine differentials.

At this level no diagnosis should be too difficult to pin down and it's likely to be logical or a common presentation you will know well rather than something more obscure or more tricky to differentiate from.

I feel getting the basics right reliably is very important and will net you a lot of marks. Introductions, explaining the purpose of the consult and the like along with explaining further plans/investigations and safety netting should all be near automatic and easy to spiel out without using up too much brain on the day.

It is worth noting that even an incorrect diagnosis will not fail you a station provided your consult is reasonable and any suggested investigations are logical and reasonable. The main aim is to examine your overall competency and safety. It's not an oblique test of knowledge or at least it never felt that way to me.

Later post-graduate stuff of course is a rather different ball-game.

I'd agree open questions are best, particularly in real consults it's just you can feel pressured in an OSCE and really need to get through things to refine differentials.

At this level no diagnosis should be too difficult to pin down and it's likely to be logical or a common presentation you will know well rather than something more obscure or more tricky to differentiate from.

I feel getting the basics right reliably is very important and will net you a lot of marks. Introductions, explaining the purpose of the consult and the like along with explaining further plans/investigations and safety netting should all be near automatic and easy to spiel out without using up too much brain on the day.

It is worth noting that even an incorrect diagnosis will not fail you a station provided your consult is reasonable and any suggested investigations are logical and reasonable. The main aim is to examine your overall competency and safety. It's not an oblique test of knowledge or at least it never felt that way to me.

Later post-graduate stuff of course is a rather different ball-game.

could you give me examples of open questions?
I always hear of the golden minute but it's nice to see others' views of examples...

The golden minute is a lofty target I feel, I would move away from it in an OSCE situation myself. In the real world you can do what you like though as you'll normally have more time.
Open questions are open to debate almost. Just go with whatever feels right to you. Anything you come across in other people's consults you can adopt or adapt to suit yourself.
You can make almost anything work:
'What brings you to see us today?'
'I've read the notes on our system but I'd rather you told me what has brought you here today'
'I can see on the system it says X, is that correct?' Knowing that quite often whatever has been entered into the notes etc may be completely wrong or even irrelevant.
After you have had an opener you can prompt further: 'tell me more about...' and similar.
There basically no right or wrong consultation style or approach. It's whatever works for you and what feels most natural.
A very useful piece of advice I was once given is that how you approach a situation can very often determine the outcome. It's why it's important to ensure everything is in order for yourself before opening a consult or entering a patient interaction.
I personally dislike the: 'how can we help you today?' but I know some people use it a lot.
I also personally find questions like 'what do you think is causing this' or: 'do you have any idea what may be causing this?' really really awkward but it's more an opportunity for the patient to feel listened to. And, to be fair, many people are expert patients where they have a long standing or chronic condition and will know what an exacerbation or flare up for them feels like.
I do feel, in the main, the biggest failure in consults is that patients are leaving them without a full understanding of what is going on, the next steps or why you have ordered investigations or referrals or whatever. It's one thing for them to be frightened about something but quite another to be both frightened and completely clueless about what is going on.
The important thing is to gently develop your consultation style and skill early on and then the speed, detail in questioning and diagnostic sieve will become more powerful and refined over time as your knowledge and experience expands.

Oh my, thank you so much!!
Doing GP placements this past year have really taught me what I like and don't like when approaching a patient.

And that is why GP placements are so important. Are you at Bristol? In year 4 you start doing full blown GP clinic/consults yourself.

no situated in London!
I just finished first year and had the best GP mentor ever...will miss her loads.
I'm pretty sure our year 4's do that too...as a pre-clinical student the emphasis is mostly on shadowing GPs and learning communication skills

@ErasistratusV Do you have any tips for counselling stations? This is one I felt was brushed over quickly when we came across it.

I found that sort of thing difficult also.

I tried to include three key parts basically.

Firstly, does the patient actually want to change the thing we're discussing? Because if not, then you're wasting your time basically.
Secondly, if they do want to change something, what are the present barriers to them making that change so you have some idea on how to help them and what just won't work.
Thirdly, make suggestions on how to change things, bearing in mind any barriers identified by the above.
Finally, small stick basically. I.e. people who don't change X or Y can experience problem A, B or C. If this happened to you and your eyesight declined, would this affect your work, would you still be able to drive, how would you support your family, etc

I find this kind of encounter challenging, I think it is because I don't like the idea that I'm threatening people or might say something that would distress them but I have seen the big stick deployed by experienced doctors (usually consultants) who are pretty blunt with patients and don't sugar coat things.