OSCE › Station
Teaching the junior student nurse
RCSI heading: Teaching the junior student nurse. You get 2 minutes with the descriptor outside the door and 10 inside, marked competent or not competent on every line. RCSI publishes no sample for this station; the descriptor below follows the layout of the two samples it does publish. Check rcsi.com before your date.
Rehearse it
Stand up, say it aloud, use whatever is on your desk as the equipment. The debrief is the competency sheet and the assessor’s questions.
To assess how you teach: finding out what the student already knows, explaining a condition and its investigation in plain words with the right facts, checking understanding, and modelling the professional role.
You are the preceptor for Emma, a first-year student on her second week. Your patient Mrs Ann Byrne, 58, is booked for a gastroscopy tomorrow for a suspected Helicobacter pylori ulcer; she is also being investigated for osteoporosis after a wrist fracture and has a DEXA scan booked. Emma asks you what these are and what she should say if the patient asks.
You are required to teach Emma, in ten minutes, one of the pairs RCSI lists (here: H. pylori and gastroscopy, then osteoporosis and DEXA), covering what it is, why the test, how the patient is prepared, and what the student can and cannot tell the patient.
- Find out what Emma already knows and what worries her before you start
- Set a structure: what it is, why, how the test works, preparation and aftercare, what to say to the patient
- H. pylori: a bacterium that lives in the stomach lining, causes most peptic ulcers, tested by breath, stool or biopsy, treated with two antibiotics twice a day for a week plus a proton pump inhibitor, retested afterwards
- Gastroscopy: a camera through the mouth into the stomach and duodenum; fasting 6 hours for food, clear fluids per policy; throat spray or sedation; nil by mouth until the throat spray wears off; someone to take her home after sedation
- Osteoporosis: bones lose density and break easily; risk factors (age, menopause, steroids, smoking, alcohol, low weight, family history); a fracture from a fall from standing height is a red flag
- DEXA: a low-dose X-ray of the hip and spine giving a T-score; minus 1 to minus 2.5 is osteopenia, below minus 2.5 osteoporosis; treatment includes calcium and vitamin D, bisphosphonates, exercise, fall prevention
- Use plain words and a comparison the student can repeat to a patient; no jargon without translation
- Say what the student may tell the patient (what the test is, how to prepare) and what she must refer to the nurse or doctor (results, diagnosis, prognosis)
- Check understanding: ask Emma to explain one part back as she would to the patient, correct gently
- Close: summarise, name where she can read more (HSE pages, ward guideline), invite questions, arrange to watch her explain it to the patient with you
Throughout: communicate in an accurate, clear and effective manner; demonstrate a level of competence essential for safe practice.
The pass: theory and OSCE
Run every station on the clock.
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Competencies assessed
Every RCSI descriptor lists the same five domains from the NMBI standards.
- Professional values and conduct of the nurse
- Nursing practice and clinical decision-making
- Knowledge and cognitive competences
- Communication and interpersonal competences
- Management and team competences
Mistakes candidates report
- Launching into the explanation without asking what she knows.
- Teaching from your own memory with a wrong number: check the T-score cut-offs and the fasting times before the station.
- Words like "eradication therapy" and "densitometry" without translation.
- Ending with "any questions?" instead of "explain it back to me".
- Forgetting the second half of the pair. RCSI lists both.
Practise the parts
Sources
- NMBI: Quality Clinical Learning Environment guidance checked 2026-09-16
- HSE: Stomach ulcer (H. pylori) checked 2026-09-16
- NHS: Osteoporosis treatment and DEXA checked 2026-09-16
- NHS: Gastroscopy checked 2026-09-16
- HSE: Obesity, BMI and waist checked 2026-09-16
- HSE: High blood pressure checked 2026-09-16
This descriptor is a practice piece written to the shape of the RCSI samples. It is not an exam task, and the exam may ask anything from the reading list.