Examination Verified — Anesthesiology

“You induce. The LMA doesn’t seat. You try twice. Now the SpO2 is 88%. The patient is desaturating. What next?”

If the OSCE is a sprint, the SOE is a slow drowning. You sit across a small table from two senior anesthesiologists. They are not your friends. They are not your mentors. They have been trained to be stone-faced, to ask “What next?” and “Why?” and “Are you sure?” in a tone that implies you have already killed the patient. anesthesiology examination

“The hardest part isn’t the knowledge,” says Dr. Maya Hersh, a third-year resident at a major academic center in Boston, six weeks before her exam. “It’s the format . In real life, if a patient’s blood pressure drops, you have vitals, a history, a physical exam, a nurse telling you what just happened. On the exam, you get a one-sentence stem: ‘A 45-year-old with a history of GERD and obesity is undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Five minutes after insufflation, SpO2 drops to 82%. What do you do?’ ” “You induce

Then the examiner interrupts: “The patient has a history you missed. She forgot to mention she had gastric bypass three years ago. She now reports epigastric pain. What do you do?” Now the SpO2 is 88%