Question on 3rd year evals in general

[Transformers]

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On my surgery rotation and well I havent been doing too well relationship wise with my residents and its not so much on interpersonal issues just more on not doing as much as my colleagues.

In terms of evals, however, at the start of my rotation, the chief resident says "only the attendings will evaluate you" based on your experiences, do you think that truly is the case (I'm not sure how an eval form looks like) because my working relationship has been great with the attendings in the OR? I guess I am not sure how likely the attendings will ask for the input of the residents (kinda worried) and how much a residents input goes in the long run.

In the big picture, negative evals dont really go on your deans letter correct? And maybe in the bigger picture, how important is the Deans letter/eval comments vs. shelf scores vs honors/HP. My school is pretty generous with HPs pending decent evals and I am content with that. My impression was all that matters from 3rd year are the number of honors/hp and AOA status so I hope I am not fretting too hard over nothing but at the same time I realize how important it is for me to work extra hard down the road once Sub Is and away rotations come around.

Thanks.

 

[scarletgirl777]

On my surgery rotation and well I havent been doing too well relationship wise with my residents and its not so much on interpersonal issues just more on not doing as much as my colleagues.

In terms of evals, however, at the start of my rotation, the chief resident says "only the attendings will evaluate you" based on your experiences, do you think that truly is the case (I'm not sure how an eval form looks like) because my working relationship has been great with the attendings in the OR? I guess I am not sure how likely the attendings will ask for the input of the residents (kinda worried) and how much a residents input goes in the long run.

In the big picture, negative evals dont really go on your deans letter correct? And maybe in the bigger picture, how important is the Deans letter/eval comments vs. shelf scores vs honors/HP. My school is pretty generous with HPs pending decent evals and I am content with that. My impression was all that matters from 3rd year are the number of honors/hp and AOA status so I hope I am not fretting too hard over nothing but at the same time I realize how important it is for me to work extra hard down the road once Sub Is and away rotations come around.

Thanks.

So it's important to understand that attendings vary widely in their commitment to med student education and in their thoughtfulness about their assessments of you. Some people will totally ask the residents or even the intern about how they feel about you and just input that without doing their own independent thought. Some will just circle a random number on the eval. A lot of times teams (and this can include midlevels or in some settings even RNs or other allied health people) tend to have groupthink about a student, so it's really for the best to get the whole team thinking positive things about you rather than only showing your best foot to the the person who you've identified will fill out your eval.

At my school negative comments were almost never put in the Dean's letter, but you'd have to ask your school to know that. The Dean's letter is many pages long. Many PDs only look at the line that includes your class rank/AOA status or the hint at your rank, the line that includes how many honors you have, and the line that includes whether you honored the elective in the specialty you're applying to, at least in the initial screen for interviews.

 

[throw away]

In the big picture, negative evals dont really go on your deans letter correct?

There is a lot of variability even within schools. Some rotation directors at my school put negative comments in the MSPE section, some do not. On FM the director put all negative comments in my MSPE and all the many positive comments in the non-MSPE section. I think this was because he knew the person who wrote bad things and didn't know the person who liked me. Needless to say, I appealed this decision and easily won. I've heard of many classmates who got red-flag worthy negative comments in their MSPE and every single one of them (that I know of) successfully appealed.

 

[throw away]

sorry posted twice

 

[Barcu]

Attendings may assign a grade but many will ask residents for input. While it may vary by attending/rotation, I find it hard to believe that your resident's opinion will not affect your grade. So, impress when you are with the attending and make the resident's life easier and you should be ok.

Negative comments can go in the Dean's Letter, but most try not to do it. If you do have some, you can probably try and talk to someone to get it changed (do this sooner rather than later).

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

As said above, it varies widely.

At my program we do the following:

On a formal level, we have one attending for each service who is in charge of the med students' grades. He/she send an email to the faculty and to the residents asking for our evaluation of each student - both a numeric score on a variety of metrics, and a subjective evaluation.

On an informal level, (and I would assume this is widely true at a lot of places) - OF COURSE we talk about the students. The attendings ask for our input all the time. And I've seen in most cases that the evaluation of the student ends up pretty much being a team consensus. If the intern thinks they are dumb or have a bad attitude or don't work hard, they grumble to the chief. The chief then picks up on it, and grumble to the attending. Or vice versa with a really good student.

 

[angry cow]

Or you play favoritism for who brown noses the best. Don't kid yourself. Third year grades are not a function of how good you are clinically. I think they may be more closely related to the weather or wether your wife just found about your newest nurse or med student conquest in the call room or stairwell. Of course you will have to deny this.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

Or you play favoritism for who brown noses the best. Don't kid yourself. Third year grades are not a function of how good you are clinically. I think they may be more closely related to the weather or wether your wife just found about your newest nurse or med student conquest in the call room or stairwell. Of course you will have to deny this.

I can only tell you what my experience is as an evaluator. I try very hard to give an objective grade to each student based on their knowledge base, preparation for the rotation, and attitude as a teammate. Just as I'm trying here to give the OP a behind-the-curtain perspective into how we formulate those evaluations.

I also make it a point to give constructive feedback, teach everyone regardless of their particular interest in surgery, and work to be a positive influence. I'm certainly not perfect, but I do the best I can because I genuinely care about education.

If you firmly believe that I am an insincere dingus who only gives honors to the students who metaphorically (or literally) fawn over me, then we are not going to be able to have a constructive conversation about this topic.

 

[angry cow]

Are you honestly saying you'd give the same evaluation to a student regardless if you're sleeping on the couch (or hotel) because wifey read your sexting escapades on your iPhone 5s while you were taking a shower?

 

[sakata8242]

"only the attendings will evaluate you"

Translation: We will talk to our residents with whom you interacted and get their assessment of you as part of your grade.

At our institution, negative comments only go into the Dean's Letter if there is a clear pattern. e.g. "This student appeared to be sleeping most of the time while on service" comes up on most if not all of your rotations. A negative comment here or there is usually given the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Evil_Abed]

Or you play favoritism for who brown noses the best. Don't kid yourself. Third year grades are not a function of how good you are clinically. I think they may be more closely related to the weather or wether your wife just found about your newest nurse or med student conquest in the call room or stairwell. Of course you will have to deny this.

Med students like to whine about how clinical evals are "unfair" and how you have to brown nose your way through the rotation in order to get a good eval. After being more than halfway done with M3 year, I can tell you that this has not been my experience at all. The vast majority of residents and attendings care that you're punctual, that you work hard, show some interest in the field, that you read up on your patients, and that you don't complain. I've very rarely seen classmates kiss ass on the wards. Most of us just work hard to learn things well and help contribute to the team, and our grades/evals reflect that. If you can function like a normal human being who has had any job in the past, you'll be okay for the most part. Unfortunately, not everyone seems to understand this concept. I've seen M3s page the residents to ask to leave in the afternoon, give every excuse possible to get out of doing any work, repeatedly not read up on their patients (meaning they knew that they were going to get questions asked about their patients + their diseases and still did not read up on that stuff), etc - these are the same people that turn around and complain that they got a poor eval because they didn't kiss ass.

Do you occasionally come across a resident or attending you don't get along well with? Of course. You just deal with it professionally and move on. Will you occasionally get an average-to-poor eval? Maybe (and I did). It sucks, but considering the number of evals we have to collect during each of our rotations, the bad ones get drowned out by the good ones. And the vast majority of people you deal with on the wards are pretty reasonable people.

 

[Transformers]

Med students like to whine about how clinical evals are "unfair" and how you have to brown nose your way through the rotation in order to get a good eval. After being more than halfway done with M3 year, I can tell you that this has not been my experience at all. The vast majority of residents and attendings care that you're punctual, that you work hard, show some interest in the field, that you read up on your patients, and that you don't complain. I've very rarely seen classmates kiss ass on the wards. Most of us just work hard to learn things well and help contribute to the team, and our grades/evals reflect that. If you can function like a normal human being who has had any job in the past, you'll be okay for the most part. Unfortunately, not everyone seems to understand this concept. I've seen M3s page the residents to ask to leave in the afternoon, give every excuse possible to get out of doing any work, repeatedly not read up on their patients (meaning they knew that they were going to get questions asked about their patients + their diseases and still did not read up on that stuff), etc - these are the same people that turn around and complain that they got a poor eval because they didn't kiss ass.

Do you occasionally come across a resident or attending you don't get along well with? Of course. You just deal with it professionally and move on. Will you occasionally get an average-to-poor eval? Maybe (and I did). It sucks, but considering the number of evals we have to collect during each of our rotations, the bad ones get drowned out by the good ones. And the vast majority of people you deal with on the wards are pretty reasonable people.

Well, I wasn't in that boat to be honest of giving excuses, not read up etc...I was pretty well prepared and did my job. The issue was honestly a relative one to my peers in terms of coming across as doing less/not getting enough facetime. I just wish the main resident confronted me about it earlier if this had been an issue rather than at the end because I was unaware and that was not my intention. Anyways, the clerkship directors are usually understanding and I was wondering if it would be a good idea to speak to the director to inform him of the circumstances prior to the filling out of these evaluations just so certain things can be indeed cautioned ahead of time and weeded out.

Thanks.

 

[DermViser]

Well, I wasn't in that boat to be honest of giving excuses, not read up etc...I was pretty well prepared and did my job. The issue was honestly a relative one to my peers in terms of coming across as doing less/not getting enough facetime. I just wish the main resident confronted me about it earlier if this had been an issue rather than at the end because I was unaware and that was not my intention. Anyways, the clerkship directors are usually understanding and I was wondering if it would be a good idea to speak to the director to inform him of the circumstances prior to the filling out of these evaluations just so certain things can be indeed cautioned ahead of time and weeded out.

Thanks.

All the reason why mid-rotation feedback is so important, and it is up to you to ask for it, which shows your level of initiative, and ability to take constructive criticism and change for the better.

This is not preschool. This is the REAL WORLD, something many of your friends who are not in medicine entered right after college. Your success in the clinical world is no longer predicated on just filling bubbles on an answer sheet.

 

[scarletgirl777]

Med students like to whine about how clinical evals are "unfair" and how you have to brown nose your way through the rotation in order to get a good eval. After being more than halfway done with M3 year, I can tell you that this has not been my experience at all. The vast majority of residents and attendings care that you're punctual, that you work hard, show some interest in the field, that you read up on your patients, and that you don't complain. I've very rarely seen classmates kiss ass on the wards. Most of us just work hard to learn things well and help contribute to the team, and our grades/evals reflect that. If you can function like a normal human being who has had any job in the past, you'll be okay for the most part. Unfortunately, not everyone seems to understand this concept. I've seen M3s page the residents to ask to leave in the afternoon, give every excuse possible to get out of doing any work, repeatedly not read up on their patients (meaning they knew that they were going to get questions asked about their patients + their diseases and still did not read up on that stuff), etc - these are the same people that turn around and complain that they got a poor eval because they didn't kiss ass.

Do you occasionally come across a resident or attending you don't get along well with? Of course. You just deal with it professionally and move on. Will you occasionally get an average-to-poor eval? Maybe (and I did). It sucks, but considering the number of evals we have to collect during each of our rotations, the bad ones get drowned out by the good ones. And the vast majority of people you deal with on the wards are pretty reasonable people.

It sounds like you always or almost always had preceptors who evaluated you in an exceptionally fair and transparent manner. That's great. That was not my own personal experience or the experience of many of my peers. I'm also surprised to hear about some of this behavior from your classmates, I've never witnessed anything like that or even heard rumors of M3s who displayed that kind of behavior at my school. We've all worked so hard to get to where we are and it is unfathomable that a clear-headed person would throw that away. Obviously someone who does that kind of thing should not be doing well on rotations.

I agree that residents and attendings have priorities other than med student education, and it's up to med students to take initiative to learn and ask for feedback. But I think it's silly to pretend this is a perfect process. I and many of my peers have repeatedly experienced situations where we'd solicit feedback, no issues would be raised, and then suddenly issues would appear on final evaluations. I have also personally witnessed residents complain about students behind their back and then say nothing to the student when they were present. I find this a little disingenous and passive aggressive. I also know now that that time is over and I've spoken to some residents that at least at my institution, preceptors do not get a lot of training on med student education or even the basics of how the evaluation process works and that enforcement of doing these basics varies wildly. I met one 3rd year resident whose who'd never bothered to evaluate a single student during his entire tenure, despite working with dozens of students during a core clerkship that he'd been "required" to supervise and evaluate. So yes, med students need to do their part to show up on time, help lighten the team's load whenever possible, read about their patients, study for the shelf, ask smart questions etc etc etc, but let's not pretend that this is always a structured process.