 Hi everyone and welcome back to the vlog. As always, a massive thank you for tuning in and following this journey and for taking the time out to come and sit and watch these vlogs. So thank you so, so much to everyone. And today's vlog is all about the dreaded oski. So where I studied at Birmingham City University, I only had one oski in our first year. I was very, very fortunate. So I can give you all of the tips and advice I can about oskies and what we did at Birmingham City University. But your university and wherever you are might do something slightly different, but hopefully I'm going to give you some good tips to help you cope in your oski as well as just doing a run through. So our oski came in two parts. The first part was a 20-minute anatomy and physiology exam. I think it was about 10 questions I think it was. It was probably about three years ago now that we did that so my memory is not there. But I think it was about 10 questions and we had four papers that we could get given and we didn't know which we would be given on the day so we had to revise all of it basically. But the choice was the skin and then I think we had respiratory, cardiology and the renal system I think were the four that we had. I was very, very fortunate to get skin because it was, I'm not going to lie, the easiest exam out of all of them. So I was very fortunate that I got the easier. Well, the exam that I found the easiest was the skin over all the other ones. So I was very fortunate that I got that one. I'm not saying it was the easier exam but it's just the one that I found the easiest, personal judgment. Someone else might have found respiratory a lot easier, someone else might have found cardiology or renal a lot easier but skin was my thing back then at the very first started off so I was chuffed when I opened that paper. And in that exam we had to label some diagrams so we had the little diagram of the epidermis, dermis and we had to label it all it was all blank and then we just had some simple sort of questions like the functions of the skin, things like that, explain a little bit about hemostasis, things like that. There was nothing really too tricky I think in that exam so I was very fortunate that I passed. The second part of the osce was the actual physical osce. So for our one we had to do a set of observations on a patient. The patient was your examiner and you had a second examiner in the corner with the little clipboard marking you. So I had to go in, I had to pretend I was on placement for example, I was out there on a ward and I would go in and I would do the blood pressure, the temperature, the pulse check and the respiratory rate on my patient making sure they're comfortable, making sure I explained all of the ranges as well of each and what I would do if these were out or abnormal. And luckily I managed to just set my mind to write this is a real life situation rather than an exam and I actually was quite calm throughout my osce because I don't know how I did it, don't ask me how but I managed to just put myself in that place. I'm on a ward, this is my patient and I'm going to be professional and this is what I'm going to do and it just I don't know how but it worked so if you can get yourself into that frame of mind don't think of it as an exam that is the biggest tip I can give you. You do this already, you've probably had a placement already, if you haven't had a placement you've never done all the observations and things like that then just practice, practice, practice that routine and you will be absolutely perfect. And that was pretty much it for our osce, that's all we had. I know some people do like a speaking exam so you'll have the examiner asking you questions and you've got to respond and talk through the processes of the body, things like that and that to be in physiology stuff. Luckily we didn't have that, thank god. But it and again it depends which field of nurse and you're in because they all do something different as well. I know my friend who was a mental health student nurse and they got what they call a visor or something like that and that was a very spoken exam, you would go in and they would quiz you on a load of mental health capacity acts and things like that. So very very different to what I did as a student so it's really important to know what you're going to be doing where you're at. But at the university ours was it was pretty straightforward, it wasn't too hard at all, it was just people would just get nervous because they knew it was an exam more than anything. Lastly on a last little note I'm going to do a very quick brief run through of how I did my oski exactly step for step and what I did so that you know what I did that might help you out. Step one, I walked into the room and I said hello my name is Claire, I am a student nurse here, do you mind if I do your observations which includes blood pressure, pulse check, temperature and respiratory rate check, is that okay with you? Yes, one I've introduced myself, two I've explained the procedure and what I'm going to do step by step to them, three I've gained that verbal consent. Next on the list you're going to say okay Mr, let's just say Kevin Smith, hello Kevin Smith, do you have a preferred name that you'd like to be called and they will say yes actually just call me Kevin, I say thank you that's perfect and then you've then gained your next step which is getting your patient's preferred name. Next you want to do your first bit of observation, so for me I always did the blood pressure first, I don't know why but it was just my go-to thing so I explained that to the patient, I got all my equipment, I clean all the equipment down so I know it's cleaned and it's there, infection control is your next hit on the thing so then I would say to the patient okay I'm going to do your manual blood pressure now, I would do the manual blood pressure and then I would give the readings and I would say okay your blood pressure today is 130 over 70 and that is the perfect range because your systolic should be between 100 and 140 and your diastolic should be anywhere between 60 and 90 so this is in the perfect range and then if you've got a good examiner they will respond to you and they'll be very nice but oh okay thank you for that information that's great clear let's get on with the next bit and yeah so then I would go and I would check the pulse whilst I'm checking the pulse say to the patient okay Kevin I'm now just going to go and check your pulse is that okay with you yeah thank you and I say to them I'm going to check it for two minutes if that's okay with you and they'll say yeah fantastic so then I will check the pulse for one minute and I'll measure the pulse and then for the second minute I will count the respiratory rate and we do that because you don't want to tell the patient that you're counting the respiratory rate because they will breathe irregularly and you'll be they'll be like this because they're focusing on their breathing because they're thinking that you're watching their breathing if that makes sense so we will always talk tell them you're going to check their pulse for two minutes first minute you do the pulse second minute you do the respiratory rate and then once you have done that so I explain to my patient I say I'm really sorry I know that took two minutes but actually I had to do the respiratory rate on top of your pulse rate because if I explain to you that I was going to do your respiratory rate it might affect the reading so we tell you that we're going to do the pulse rate but actually I did the pulse and then the respiratory rate afterwards I hope that's okay and then the patient will say yes that's fine beautiful thank you and then I will say okay that's great so your pulse rate was 78 and that's perfect because it's in the normal range of between 60 and 100 that's the average range that we look for yours is 78 so that's great and your respiratory rate was 14 today so that's great because the ranges but the respiratory rate is between 12 and 20 per minute so that's a great range for you as well so then I will do the temperature I will make sure I clean it all off I've put a fresh clean cover on it I would tell the patient what you're going to do okay I'm going to do temperature now and then I would pull back the ear make sure there's no hearing aids in the ear ask the patient do they wear hearing aids no that's fine let's go pull the ear back put the thermometer press the button check it out okay yep your temperature is 37 that is perfect because the average range is 36.5 to 37.5 fantastic and then I just end it with okay I've now finished all of your observations they are all in range however if any one of these were out of range then I would have to report it back to my mentor and just get them to look into this a bit further and is that okay and do you need anything else from me can I get you anything else patient will say no that's fine thank you and off you go and just on a final little bit always make sure that you've documented everything on your news to chart correctly that's the last thing that we were assessed on as well was they go through your news chart and make sure you've put those ranges in there that all in range you've put everything in the right boxes you haven't got anything wrong and job done so my top tips for surviving your oski know what you're doing for a start make sure you're practicing practicing practicing practice with your family your friends covid safe of course we are in a pandemic but just keep practicing practice on your dogs your cats whatever but just do if the more you run through it every single day or every month for every two weeks leading up to your exam however you want to do it um the more you practice the more comfortable and confident you will feel and this is exactly what I did I literally just practiced whenever I could I made sure my manual blood pressure was on point so just I knew that I was going to be confident on the day because I practiced it so much I had nothing to do I was just there I was like yeah okay here we go and it just it really does make a big difference the more you practice honestly guys and next like I said just make sure you you try and think of it like a real life situation I know is almost impossible because it's not a real life situation it is an exam room and they're not your patients but you have to really set your mind on right this is what I do on placement I'm going to treat this as a placement and just get through it that way because if you can set your mind like that honestly it really helps the nerves and you just fly through it and you're just like yeah okay it's done and then you worry about it afterwards it's honestly it's the best thing that I managed to do and I still have no idea how I did it so if you really suffer with anxiety around exams and things like that find your way of relaxing and calming yourself before you go into that exam so some things like breathing techniques are really really good and helpful I saw this one on tiktok actually where someone said that if you get really really anxious if you hold a bottle of water and throw that bottle of water from side to side let me find something it's not a bottle of water but it's but if you do this and you just concentrate on that apparently that process of doing that really helps calm your mind and relieve that anxiety and it's because of the imbalance in the mind of the two different sides so if you're doing that it helps to balance it out I don't know if this works I have not tried this yet but you know what it's free and easy so if it works amazing one thing I did use though I used to do a lot of meditation actually because I found that this just really helped me settle as well as the breathing techniques and I also used pulse point rollers which I still have so I have these ones mind clear there's another one for stress that I've got on the side as well stress and anxiety specifically also lavender lavender oil on your pulse points just put it here here here you might smell like lavender for the rest of the day but it does help me or it does it helps me anyway hopefully it'll help you too and there is some research behind it as well so it is good um but it just helps to just have that sense of calm feeling and I used to I used to use them actually a lot when I went to the dentist because I hate the dentist and I get so anxious so that is one place I do use them as well as exams and assessments it just works for me it might not be but it's about finding what works for you and do more of that so whatever helps you to calm those nerves and release that anxiety do more of that and lastly oskies are also more about you and the way you present and your communication skills as well with that patient is how you are how you are as a student nurse and going out into the placement area so if you can try and be as professional as possible make sure your uniforms clean hairs up no earrings look the part because I know for us we got mocked down for uniforms and things like body language and communication so just make sure you've got those perfected before you go into that room as well if you're nervous then you're nervous don't worry about it they're going to expect nerves but just make sure that you look the part and you come across as a little bit more confident than you might feel and also it's about being safe as well so if you find a situation where if you're doing a set of ops like I had to do for example and you literally cannot hear the pulse for the blood pressure you can't hear anything you're really struggling that's okay because sometimes you just can't sometimes you do get that with patients and it's just impossible and you have to get someone else to do it so as long as you just stop and say and be open and honest with the examiners and just say I'm really really sorry I'm not getting anything here I can't hear anything and then explain what you would do in that situation out on placement to show that you're safe and competent at doing that that's okay so as long as you say something along the lines I'm really sorry I can't get this pulse right now I don't know what's happened I've tried both arms I can't hear anything I can't feel anything if this was me out in placement then I would go and get another nurse or my mentor to come and check it out for me um then that's it though they just want to show that you have got things in place for when things aren't quite right or things are going wrong that you are safe and competent at doing that as well so it's all about best practice and looking after your patient at the end of the day and these things happen like I said so don't worry about it don't stress about it don't get so overwhelmed and have a breakdown about it because it's okay and that's perfectly fine to do that so for the anatomy and physiology section I have done a whole vlog about revision techniques and how to help you remember for the exam so I'm going to put the link below go and have a look at that if you haven't already that'll really hopefully help you when you're trying to revise these things for your oscces as well it can be really useful I know that all these tips helped me so I'm hoping fingers crossed they help you but again it's about you as an individual and how you learn and how you remember stuff that's the best way for you me telling you anything like do this or do that it might not work for you so it's about finding out about yourself and what helps you remember at the end of the day and do more of that so I hope that was really really helpful for you I hope that you've got something out of that just a little talk through of the oscce and what happens um that's literally how I did mine you just think of it step by step make sure you're gaining consent introducing yourself health and safety infection control everything's going to go perfect don't sweat it and on that note I'm going to say goodbye everyone and I shall see you next time have an amazing Christmas it's Christmas next week guys I hope that you're all going to stay safe and hope you can have some sort of enjoyment over Christmas with the lockdown restrictions and everything but for now it's a goodbye from me and I shall see you all next time