About OSCExcellence & Our Teaching Philosophy
Our Story
The founder of OSCExcellence is a graduate of the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto, graduating with First Class Honours. He is also the current holder of the Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) designation. He has been a practicing pharmacist in Ontario for over 15 years, with experience across a wide range of pharmacy settings including community pharmacy, long-term care pharmacy, primary care (Family Health Team), and most recently, hospital pharmacy.
Through years of frontline practice, he has developed extensive clinical knowledge, strong communication skills, and a deep understanding of patient-centered care — all of which are essential for success on the Canadian Pharmacist OSCE exam. He is passionate about helping students build confidence, strengthen their clinical reasoning, and refine their communication skills through personalized one-on-one coaching.
The idea behind OSCExcellence began with a success story.
During a community pharmacy shift, the founder met an International Pharmacy Graduate (IPG) who had failed the OSCE exam three times and was preparing for his final attempt. The IPG was understandably anxious, knowing that failing the exam could mean losing the opportunity to practice as a pharmacist in Canada which would result in him not being able to support his young family.
Wanting to help, the founder volunteered his time and met regularly with the pharmacist at Tim Hortons for late-night practice sessions, often spending two or more hours per night reviewing cases, improving patient interview techniques, and building confidence step by step.
That pharmacist went on to successfully pass the OSCE exam.
That experience became the inspiration behind OSCExcellence: personalized mentorship, genuine support, and a commitment to helping students succeed.
Let OSCExcellence be part of your success story.
Our Teaching Philosophy
This OSCE coaching service will focus on the following commitments to you: We will teach you the OSCE process from start to finish: helping you build confidence in effectively interviewing the patient, formulating a therapeutic plan, and communicating this plan with clarity and precision. This service is not about helping you memorize common case scenarios, but rather it will help you learn the problem solving process that you can apply to all OSCE stations and real-life encounters in Canada's health care system!
Teaching provided by OSCExcellence is informed by NAPRA Competencies and the PEBC Blueprint:
At OSCExcellence, we incorporate NAPRA’s entry-to-practice competencies and the latest PEBC Examination blueprint. Through practice cases and individualized feedback, we help learners apply their knowledge, strengthen clinical judgment, and develop the skills assessed in PEBC OSCE exam. Our teaching addresses the following six competency areas:
Providing Care: Clinical Care — Gathering relevant patient information, assessing patient needs, developing and implementing individualized care plans, and monitoring outcomes.
Providing Care: Distribution — Reviewing and processing prescriptions, preparing and verifying medications, ensuring safe dispensing, and managing pharmacy inventory.
Knowledge and Expertise — Applying professional judgment and evidence to make informed decisions in the patient’s best interests.
Communication and Collaboration — Communicating effectively with patients and other healthcare professionals, working collaboratively, and documenting pharmacy care.
Leadership and Stewardship — Promoting public and community health and wellness.
Professionalism — Applying legal and ethical principles, supporting equity, diversity, and inclusion, and promoting patient safety and continuous quality improvement.
During the coaching sessions, the following will be covered:
Step 1: OSCE patient interviewing process
Teaching you the simple way to effectively and efficiently interview the patient to gather relevant information about the case.
Step 2: Therapeutic plan formulation
Coach the student to formulate a therapeutic plan that is concise yet thorough enough to ensure they get all the points needed to pass the OSCE station.
Step 3: Communication and implementation
Coach the student to use effective verbal and non-verbal communication to propose the therapeutic plan to either the patient or healthcare professional (depending on the station) to ensure buy-in and implementation (with appropriate follow-up).
Note: Each hour session, OSCExcellence aims to cover at least 4 - 5 OSCE cases. The number of cases will depend on the time it takes to provide feedback and coaching to the student after each case. Each hour, OSCExcellence will cover interactive cases and some non-interactive cases.
Interactive OSCE cases/stations
Includes stations where you interact with a patient, family member or physician/other health professionals. Special emphasis will be placed on the proper and professional communication style needed to interact with other health care professionals as encountered in Canada's health care system. Topics covered include patient counselling, minor ailments, medication reconciliation, monitoring efficacy and adverse effects, managing drug interactions and renal dosing, clarifying prescriptions and resolving drug therapy problems, making clinical recommendations to health professionals, as well as handling ethical conflicts / difficult conversations.
Non-interactive OSCE cases/stations
Includes new prescription screening (technical and therapeutic check), MAR/blister pack checking, written requests for drug information, calculations, documentation (SBAR, SOAP, DAP formats) etc.
OSCExcellence provides coaching service to those eligible to write the PEBC OSCE exam. The OSCE exam is one of potentially many steps needed to obtain a Canadian Pharmacist license. It is the responsibility of each student to determine the steps they need to get certified in Canada. The exams needed to obtain the Canadian Pharmacist license include PEBC MCQ (Qualifying Exam Part 1) and PEBC OSCE (Qualifying Exam Part 2)
For more information, visit the following helpful websites to determine what you need:
Also: consider checking the various provincial colleges of pharmacists to learn more about their requirements such as the Ontario College of Pharmacists etc.
Note: OSCExcellence is not affiliated with any of the above organizations.