eOSCE

Inspiration

A few years ago, I completed my board certification in Preventive Medicine, and the clinical examination was one of the most difficult parts of the journey. Finding quality preparation resources was nearly impossible. I had no colleagues available to organize mock exams with, so I relied almost entirely on my theoretical knowledge.

The problem is that an OSCE is not just a test of knowledge. It evaluates communication, clinical reasoning, and the ability to take a structured patient history under time pressure. These are practical skills that improve through repetition and feedback, not by reading textbooks alone.

Organized mock OSCEs do exist, but they are expensive and offered by only a handful of organizations. Running one requires reserving venues, recruiting examiners and standardized patients, arranging travel and accommodation, and coordinating dozens of participants. Those costs are ultimately passed on to residents, making regular practice inaccessible for many.

That experience inspired me to create eOSCE: a platform that delivers a complete OSCE experience entirely online. Residents can participate in a structured, station-based examination from anywhere, while examiners and standardized patients join remotely. The experience is designed to be simple enough for anyone to use, regardless of technical ability.

Participants simply grant access to their camera and microphone, join their assigned station, and progress through the examination with automated timers, voice prompts, and seamless transitions between stations. The focus remains on the assessment, not on the technology.

What it does

eOSCE delivers a structured online clinical examination experience designed to prepare medical residents for one of the most important assessments of their training: the OSCE.

The platform supports five role-based user types:

• Administrators: Organize and manage the examination by creating clinical stations, drafting examiner checklists, configuring station timing, and setting participant rotations.
• Examiners: Remain assigned to a single station throughout the examination, assess participants using standardized checklists, and provide structured feedback.
• Participants: The primary users of the platform. They register for mock examinations, rotate through clinical stations, and receive station-specific feedback to improve their performance.
• Standardized Patients (SPs): Optional for each station. They follow predefined scripts to portray patients consistently, allowing participants to practice communication, history-taking, counseling, and clinical reasoning in realistic scenarios.
• Observers: An optional role intended for faculty members, trainers, or quality assurance personnel. They may observe examinations and participate in feedback and evaluation without directly examining participants.

How we built it

Before writing a single prompt, I knew that WebRTC was the core of this project. I had to choose the right infrastructure to ensure a proper experience. After extensive research, I decided to go with LiveKit (not affiliated). I chose it because it is open source (I’m a big fan of the open-source community), offers generous participant minutes, and, above all, integrates Agents within video call rooms. I could use an OpenAI API key to have an agent introduce the instructions for each room to participants, offer help, and answer questions before the room begins. This feature is not yet built into eOSCE, but I have the proper infrastructure for it.

Built in Next.js, TanStack Query. I chose Better Auth (again, open source) and deployed it on Cloudflare Workers via OpenNext, with Hyperdrive and a Durable Object scheduler.

Challenges we ran into

I knew that some users of the platform may not be very Technical. I had to provide an experience that does not require many clicks. I'm still struggling with a smooth, non-clicky journey. The scheduler part of the experience, where time is set for each station, is not yet optimized; there's a delay, and rotation starts take a bit to warm up. I'm still looking into it.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're already in talks with a college assistant who admired the idea and wants to soft-launch the platform to prepare the next batch of residents for their upcoming OESCE exam. We're planning for an October launch, a couple of months before the actual exam set date.

What we learned

AI can do far more for some landing pages for sure. This project was entirely built on GPT models. Mostly the 5.5 model series. I'm convinced that any idea can be built with ChatGPT models as long as the prompter (I'm not an engineer) studies the idea and articulates it well.

What's next for eOSCE

Right now, we're targeting Preventive Medicine residents, but the goal is to go far beyond that. This is an untapped market! We're thinking of other medical boards, med schools, and maybe even non-medical professions that require simulation exams.

For demo: Username: admin@example.test Password:eosce-demo-password

Built With

• bun
• docker
• drizzle
• livekit
• nextjs
• opennext
• postgresql
• shadcn
• tanstack