Challenging evals?

[mercaptovizadeh]

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Is it worth disputing clinical evils? The grade is ok (HP) but the written comments have no resemblance whatsoever to the live/oral feedback, and overall sound kind of blah. I'm thinking of trying to meet with the clerkship director. Is this ill-advised, are there repercussions? I have no illusion that they are going to change my letter grade, it's the comments that I find worrisome.

 

[MalachiConstant]

Is it worth disputing clinical evils? The grade is ok (HP) but the written comments have no resemblance whatsoever to the live/oral feedback, and overall sound kind of blah. I'm thinking of trying to meet with the clerkship director. Is this ill-advised, are there repercussions? I have no illusion that they are going to change my letter grade, it's the comments that I find worrisome.

I'm in the opposite, but I think equally frustrating position. My IM rotation was in November and the eval just got turned in yesterday. The comments were great, in person feedback was always really positive, and I do think I did well on the service. Grade - pass

 

[duckie99]

Honestly unless something was said that was completely false I would suggest letting this stuff go. Everyone knows the evaluation system kinda sucks because your eval is probably based more on the individual evaluator's tendencies than your actual performance (to an extent). However also know that students often inflate themselves in their minds to be better than they actually are. Residents and attendings who have worked with many students over the years are good at telling what students are good vs average vs poor. So the system is what is. I would not go around arguing about an eval because your chances are slim that anything will actually be done about it. I would just do what you do on a rotation (try hard, don't complain, etc) and let the evals be what they are without worrying about them.

 

[Stellar Clouds]

Honestly unless something was said that was completely false I would suggest letting this stuff go. Everyone knows the evaluation system kinda sucks because your eval is probably based more on the individual evaluator's tendencies than your actual performance (to an extent). However also know that students often inflate themselves in their minds to be better than they actually are. Residents and attendings who have worked with many students over the years are good at telling what students are good vs average vs poor. So the system is what is. I would not go around arguing about an eval because your chances are slim that anything will actually be done about it. I would just do what you do on a rotation (try hard, don't complain, etc) and let the evals be what they are without worrying about them.

I'm going to have to disagree with this. If you think the comments don't accurate reflect your performance, you should definitely talk to someone (either your evaluator or the clerkship director). The worse they can say is that they won't change it, but if you have specific examples of why they were wrong in what they said, they may actually change it.

 

[perplexedpixel]

Lol, "clinical evils." So true. A HP is a perfectly fine grade. Not honors but not worth picking a fight. As for the comments, it depends on the nature of the comments. If the comments are horrible, such as "mercaptovizadeh was the worst student I ever worked with and should be banned from the medical field," I'd be more worried than "mercaptovizadeh was a good, average student." Remember that medical schools are obligated to include all comments copied verbatim into the MSPE (dean's letter). If you are truly worried and feel that your comments or grade do not accurately reflect your performance, send a polite, diplomatic e-mail to the clerkship director and/or evaluator. He or she can address and make changes to the comments. Be sure to have evidence to back up your stance. Otherwise you're just another giddy medical student upset about not getting honors and showered with praise. Unfortunately, not everyone can get honors (I know how it feels to be HP limbo - almost all my grades are HP). However, if you choose to get comments changed, be sure to tread carefully. At my school, I have heard that if you hassle the clerkship director too much, she will lower your grade. She also threatens to contact the dean and the professionalism committee at my school. Good luck! 🙂

 

[rocketbooster]

Lol, "clinical evils." So true. A HP is a perfectly fine grade. Not honors but not worth picking a fight. As for the comments, it depends on the nature of the comments. If the comments are horrible, such as "mercaptovizadeh was the worst student I ever worked with and should be banned from the medical field," I'd be more worried than "mercaptovizadeh was a good, average student." Remember that medical schools are obligated to include all comments copied verbatim into the MSPE (dean's letter). If you are truly worried and feel that your comments or grade do not accurately reflect your performance, send a polite, diplomatic e-mail to the clerkship director and/or evaluator. He or she can address and make changes to the comments. Be sure to have evidence to back up your stance. Otherwise you're just another giddy medical student upset about not getting honors and showered with praise. Unfortunately, not everyone can get honors (I know how it feels to be HP limbo - almost all my grades are HP). However, if you choose to get comments changed, be sure to tread carefully. At my school, I have heard that if you hassle the clerkship director too much, she will lower your grade. She also threatens to contact the dean and the professionalism committee at my school. Good luck! 🙂

This statement isn't true. The dean only incorporates positive comments into the dean's letter. Think about how many eval comments you get? No way they're all included. The more negative ones are probably automatically filtered out by the deans. Generally the dean only wants to be your advocate...don't worry about it.

 

[235009]

The dean only incorporates positive comments into the dean's letter. Think about how many eval comments you get? No way they're all included. The more negative ones are probably automatically filtered out by the deans. Generally the dean only wants to be your advocate...don't worry about it.

This is NOT universally true...particularly with regards to the process. Different schools do things differently so your best bet is to track down a fourth year and get input specific to your school. For all we know this might be your best chance to get this changed at your school.

Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk

 

[Stellar Clouds]

This is NOT universally true...particularly with regards to the process. Different schools do things differently so your best bet is to track down a fourth year and get input specific to your school. For all we know this might be your best chance to get this changed at your school.

Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk

I agree with skin. I do know that at my school the clerkship directors summarize your comments from the course, which is then incorporated into your dean's letter.

This statement isn't true. The dean only incorporates positive comments into the dean's letter. Think about how many eval comments you get? No way they're all included. The more negative ones are probably automatically filtered out by the deans. Generally the dean only wants to be your advocate...don't worry about it.

If the dean's never put any negative comments in letters, there would be fewer "red flags" and the usefulness of the deans letter would be even less than it is now. Don't get me wrong, the dean wants you to match, but you can't guarentee that they will delete negative comments. I'm not sure if your school does this, but at the very end of the dean's letter there is a sentence saying how highly they recommend you. I promise you, not everyone gets the highest recommendation.

 

[Siggy]

Remember that medical schools are obligated to include all comments copied verbatim into the MSPE (dean's letter).

Nope. My school's evaluation form includes two different section comments. One for positive statements which explicitly says that it will be included, and one for negative comments, which explicitly says that it will not be included in the MSPE.
Additionally, they try to proof read the comments so that you don't end up being someone who is "pleasent,[sic] and knowledgeable" or "showed growth and improvement over cours[sic] of rotation. Works good with the team" (note capitalization and punctuation as well).

 

[perplexedpixel]

I apologize if I was a little absolute in describing the MSPE, as it appears to vary from school to school. For almost all of my rotations, comments were literally copied and pasted verbatim and separated by quotes. Only 1 rotation had a summary from the evaluations. All others were copy and paste. Some of my classmates were surprised how some lukewarm comments and mistakes were present in our MSPE letters. There were classmates who had their names left misspelled from the comments and bad comments. Granted, I can only speak of my experience at my school. Perhaps other schools don't have such a hard line approach. I agree with SkinMD's recommendation to find out more information his/her school's approach to evaluations and the MSPE. My intention was for the OP to be cautious in the evaluation and MSPE process. It's a lot easier to address bad evaluations now than at the last minute when the MSPE is about to be sent out.

 

[kjamess]

This statement isn't true. The dean only incorporates positive comments into the dean's letter. Think about how many eval comments you get? No way they're all included. The more negative ones are probably automatically filtered out by the deans. Generally the dean only wants to be your advocate...don't worry about it.

Not necessarily true. At my school this is absolutely FALSE. Here, the clerkship director is the only one who filters if he/she so chooses. Otherwise its a copy and paste job directly to the MSPE.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

It's the MSPE I'm worried about. I think I will go talk to the clerkship director about this.

 

[Dwindlin]

Not necessarily true. At my school this is absolutely FALSE. Here, the clerkship director is the only one who filters if he/she so chooses. Otherwise its a copy and paste job directly to the MSPE.

This is how it works at my program. My MSPE is my clerkship director evaluations verbatim.

 

[MonsterAddict]

I have a general question. I feel like there is a huge luck factor when it comes to clinical evaluations. I know people grades have been drastically different just because they got an "easy attending" or a nice resident. Even though they were the same caliber student. Does everyone feel like this? Do residency programs realize this? How could they not. Especially when you are trying to get honors, so just one bad grade can bring you down.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

I have a general question. I feel like there is a huge luck factor when it comes to clinical evaluations. I know people grades have been drastically different just because they got an "easy attending" or a nice resident. Even though they were the same caliber student. Does everyone feel like this? Do residency programs realize this? How could they not. Especially when you are trying to get honors, so just one bad grade can bring you down.

I certainly felt this way. The two rotations in which I've got honors in, I never had to write a single note, one of them I barely even saw patients on my own. The other two rotations, where I got HPs, I was a note-writing slave and did extra assignments, etc. And the course structure and team you get seems to have a huge influence.

 

[mimelim]

I have a general question. I feel like there is a huge luck factor when it comes to clinical evaluations. I know people grades have been drastically different just because they got an "easy attending" or a nice resident. Even though they were the same caliber student. Does everyone feel like this? Do residency programs realize this? How could they not. Especially when you are trying to get honors, so just one bad grade can bring you down.

There is variability, but people seriously overestimate it. Just like how everyone thinks their LOR are good/great/superior.

 

[ijn]

There is variability, but people seriously overestimate it. Just like how everyone thinks their LOR are good/great/superior.

People also assume how their own medical school graded is what the other 140 medical schools are like.

Some programs like to make the evals just one component in some sort of percentage scheme where doing better in one part of the clerkship makes up for a deficiency in another.

Other programs make evals an absolute bar where if you don't make >X average, then it doesn't matter if you get a 99th percentile NBME grade. You merely pass.

There is also huge variability in the average evaluation given by a physician. I've seen such a database at my school. You can get ****ed by getting a string of historically stingy attendings or be given a free ride with people who throw out max marks like candy.