clerkship evals

[Olanzapine]

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My clerkship evals make no sense to me. Our clerkship evaluations are cut and pasted into our dean's letter word for word, so some say that the written part of the evaluation is just as important as your grade. I recently got my OB/Gyn rotation eval back. My evaluation was written by an attending who wrote that "... participated fully in the rotation, attending small group and rounds on time. In small group, I was noted to only answer questions when directed at me, [thus] I seem introspective and shy"... I'll admit that I'm not the most outgoing in the entire world, but to have this written in my eval made no sense at all. We had ~3 small groups with this guy (2 were cancelled because he had other things to do), I had at least one of them on post-call days when I was just struggling to stay awake, and the other times I thought that I did participate fully in his small group. Anyways, I guess what bugs me the most is that I spent 6 weeks in this stupid rotation, and my eval is 3 sentences long, with 2 of them written solely about my "performance" in 3 1hr small groups that were just supposed to be opportunities to learn, not places where we were supposed to be graded. I guess the take home message is that you are always being graded during third yr, no matter who you are talking to or what you are doing.

 

[hotbovie]

I had a simliar experience. In fact, many of my classmates say that some of the statements in their deans letters taken from the evaluations are the least flattering or least complementary statements. I know many of my classmates are disappointed and/or angry about the content of the deans letter.

However, I don't think many programs are paying much attention to that. I was pretty pissed when I first read my dean's letter, but it doesn't seem to be hurting me any, as I have 16 interviews so far and only 1 rejection. Some pretty good programs, too.

 

[shag]

OB/GYN was my first rotation. We don't see actual evals, but we receive a letter with a grade, good and bad comments from residents and the occasional attending.

I found out that I was a wonderful, insightful, well read team player who lacked professionalism, did not understand my patients condition, had a poor fund of knowledge, and was demanding of my team.

Really helpful feedback, huh?

 

[Clip]

If it makes you feel any better, one of my evaluations mentioned that I had good hair and was a great dresser. This should make me a shoo-in for any residency with its own fashion club.
I know at my school the evaluations from third year are only a few sentences, but that written evaluations from early fourth year electives are more thorough and also of use in writing dean's letters.
In terms of knowing what I actually need to work on, I've found the resident's evaluations more helpful as they have spent more time with me and are more likely to have constructive comments that I can really apply.
Another thing to consider when looking at the evaluations are what is the "typical" evaluation from that attending like. From some attendings a 90 means you were horrible -- for others it means you rocked the rotation. I know that for one attending I had the comments which called me conscientious, blah, blah, blah, meant that she was really impressed and for her was gushing about my performance.
Overall I wouldn't get too hung up over one evaluation that you receive this year. Probably all of us get a few stinkers that bear no revelancy to how we actually did. I would be more concerned if every evaluation you received were negative. Also, it is important to remember that the primary reason for evaluations is to tell us our relative strengths and weakness so that we can improve ourselves, not just to give us great comments to go in a dean's letter.

 

[Thewonderer]

I think it is tough when your dean told you all along that "clinical year grades are more important than your preclinical grades BY FAR, and it is during your core rotation year when you learn to become a REAL DOCTOR and know how to work well within a team (i.e. gunner attitude is not allowed), etc. etc. etc. etc."

Then when you go in, you find out that they (attendings, residents) sometimes don't give a crap about what they write on your evaluation and some of your gunner classmates are doing everything to suck up to the attendings+residents (they don't backstab your or anything but they shamelessly lie and proclaim that they want to go into neurology and surgery and ob-gyn and medicine and psychiatry AND whichever rotation they are on; or sometimes, they just lie about lectures+meetings so they can get 1 more hour of sleep than all the other people).

There is nothing you can do about it. Just try to be who you are and good evaluations will either come to you or not. Many people are confused by the eval they get and wonder if they did something wrong. The answer is, "if you were being yourself and are nice, respectful to the patients and other team members and are willing to learn, you have done nothing wrong." If they don't give you the right eval, screw them. Don't loose sight of who you are and get pissed off at others who suck up and lie just to get out of clinical duties. In the end, you will feel better about yourself no matter what you have done (granted, if I got no honors during my clinical rotations for being who I truly am, I would get seriously pissed off..... ).

 

[Acro Yali]

I don't have too much else to say about clinical evals but the clinical years so far, has been the most exciting and sometimes, the most dreaded year. Its exciting because I am actually doing what I am supposed to do instead of sitting on my butt learning esoteric information. As far as the dreaded parts...well I think anyone who has been though third year know already. 😀

 

[Pepe]

Check this out!! Just to prove how unrelated some clerkship comments are to any form of reality. I just finished my surgery rotation and went to look at my evaluation. At my school we do two weeks of trauma and as I was looking at my evaluations I read my trauma one which said something along the lines of "great team player blah..blah" "hard worker blah..blah" and so on. One small problem...I took a leave of absence during the trauma rotation. WASN'T EVEN THERE!!!! What makes it even worse is that I got the same grade by not showing up as I did on all the rotations that I did show up for. I don't know if I should laugh or cry about this. I know everyone is busy but...PUHLEAZE!!!

 

[Thewonderer]

yeah grades (not just comment) don't reflect how you did either....

It is always the same... "enjoy working with so and so. he worked hard. showed interest. asked good questions...." Therefore his grade is..... pass

 

[drdaizy]

We still get grades during clinical rotations (A-F) and all too often the grades and evaluations don't match up. One good friend had outstanding OB evals, highest shelf grade, highest quiz grades, all of which came out to a numerical score of 94%. She got a B. On a 92-100=A grading scale. Some of my peds evals were laughable. "Great person, will make an outstanding resident, we would like her in our program," yet I get the same letter grade as someone who wasn't prepared half the time or couldn't even write a coherent note because the attendings don't like to give good grades to anyone, so they just give everyone the same thing. Sometimes they say one thing in the written comments and then totally contradict themselves in the "objective" parts of the eval. 🙄 I know good and well that nothing is going to change. I just have to wonder where the learning comes in here. How am I supposed to change what I'm doing wrong when I can't tell what it is? Frustrating. Good to know that it doesn't just happen here.

 

[Thewonderer]

Originally posted by pba
look forward to 4th year evals because your work ethic/knowledge finally pays off.

-pba

the problem, I have heard, though is that 3rd year required clerkship grades are the most important because 4th year electives are basically vacation time. The only thing that counts in 4th year is sub-I rotation and most people only take one or two of them. Those grades will be important and you have a lot more grades coming from 3rd year rotations on medicine, surgery, neurology, family med, ob-gyn, psych and peds....

In the end, just screw it. Do whatever make yourself happy. Just as long as you are respectful to the people around you and are still learning.

 

[Thewonderer]

Originally posted by pba
they dont have to be vacation time if you are interested in learning.

-pba

You do learn stuff on icu rotations. But radiology, dermatology, and other electives which are important to everyone later on in whatever fields he or she goes into tend to have easy hours. They also give out easy grades. So even if you learn, residency directors will still treat them as vacation "grades."