The invention of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) represented a radical break with forms of examination traditionally used to assess the competence of medical students. Unlike written or bed-side exams, an OSCE required students to perform with a series of actors in fixed-interval simulated scenarios. The technique spread rapidly and today OSCEs are used around the globe to assess health professionals. This Foucauldian socio-history explores how discourses of performance, psychometrics and production have legitimized the widespread adoption of OSCEs. Probing an archive of...