Demoralizing evaluation from fellowship attending in an elective with her

[nashjoe]

Had a decent interview with the fellowship attending and the faculty staff. Then, I did an elective rotation with the attending at the fellowship program. The elective went well overall; I saw a similar number of patients as 1st year fellows on a typical day. At the end of the rotation, the attending wrote the following on my evaluation: "He is sluggish, has communication barriers because of language, and has a seemly weak medical knowledge base. It seems that he is better suited to a large group practice with plenty of supportive advice. I somewhat fear for his competency, although my exposure to him in regard to challenging cases was very modest."
1. Should I even continue my fellowship interview trails? I feel like that I want to graduate ASAP before any attending fail me on my rotations.
2. Any comments or suggestions?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Attending1985]

Had a decent interview with the fellowship attending and the faculty staff. Then, I did an elective rotation with the attending at the fellowship program. The elective went well overall; I saw a similar number of patients as 1st year fellows on a typical day. At the end of the rotation, the attending wrote the following on my evaluation: "He is sluggish, has communication barriers because of language, and has a seemly weak medical knowledge base. It seems that he is better suited to a large group practice with plenty of supportive advice. I somewhat fear for his competency, although my exposure to him in regard to challenging cases was very modest."
1. Should I even continue my fellowship interview trails? I feel like that I want to graduate ASAP before any attending fail me on my rotations.
2. Any comments or suggestions?

What fellowship are you applying to? How would this effect your ability to graduate?

 

[Piebaldi]

Had a decent interview with the fellowship attending and the faculty staff. Then, I did an elective rotation with the attending at the fellowship program. The elective went well overall; I saw a similar number of patients as 1st year fellows on a typical day. At the end of the rotation, the attending wrote the following on my evaluation: "He is sluggish, has communication barriers because of language, and has a seemly weak medical knowledge base. It seems that he is better suited to a large group practice with plenty of supportive advice. I somewhat fear for his competency, although my exposure to him in regard to challenging cases was very modest."
1. Should I even continue my fellowship interview trails? I feel like that I want to graduate ASAP before any attending fail me on my rotations.
2. Any comments or suggestions?

So you are a resident now, applying for fellowship? to me the situation is slightly confusing. So the communication issue could be an issue, it's unclear. The other statements seem rather harsh for what I assume was a month rotation? And if you had an interview with the program/faculty at the fellowship, why do an elective there?
I would say continue your fellowship interviews. Why not? Not understanding how continuing to interview would have any effect on your graduation date?
Again I think the language/communication barrier issue might be legit. I am having a bit of a hard time putting all your thoughts into a clear picture.
If you are a resident, one bad evaluation likely won't be enough to hurt your chances at graduation.
Did you speak to this attending?Where they able to help you clarify where you might have had issues in terms of knowledge?

 

[Dral]

There are at least three possibilities:

1. They are a jerk. Medicine has some strong personalities and some people really are just jerks. However, maybe they were having a bad day when they wrote your eval
2. You really didn't do so well on the rotation. If your self assessment brings you to the conclusion that you were preoccupied or had other things going on during the rotation, then do your best to not let that affect you in the future. If this is a common theme among your evals, then it's some time for self reflection/changes.
3. They got you confused with another person.

The only way I would say to consider dropping the interviews if it's the latter portion of #2 (the part about this being a consistent thing you see on your evals).

It's really too difficult for us on SDN to tell since we are not your/your evaluator.

Best of luck.

 

[nashjoe]

Thanks for responding to this thread. I'm currently a PGY3. I admit it was a mistake to do an elective with the program after interview.
I did two elective rotations at the fellowship institution. The two attendings during my 1st elective at the institution gave me excellent evals at the institution which made me to make the final decision to apply to the fellowship program. Per suggestions from one of the two attendings during my first elective rotation at the institution, I did my 2nd elective with the 3rd attending who happened to be the PD of the program. The evaluation of the 2nd elective was mentioned above.

 

[mvenus929]

Thanks for responding to this thread. I'm currently a PGY3. I admit it was a mistake to do an elective with the program after interview.
I did two elective rotations at the fellowship institution. The two attendings during my 1st elective at the institution gave me excellent evals at the institution which made me to make the final decision to apply to the fellowship program. Per suggestions from one of the two attendings during my first elective rotation at the institution, I did my 2nd elective with the 3rd attending who happened to be the PD of the program. The evaluation of the 2nd elective was mentioned above.

Well, if this is a real evaluation (they didn't mix you up with someone else), you probably won't match. But, if they didn't give you any feedback suggesting improvement during the rotation, it's probably not a fellowship you want to do anyway (since the PD of all people should be giving regular feedback).

 

[IlDestriero]

If the PD wrote that, there’s no way you will match. They’re going to go unfilled before they take you.
Look at other programs.

 

[nashjoe]

I started looking for jobs and have already arranged for multiple phone interviews in late afternoons. Today, I received an email from the fellowship program (with a different faculty member) asking me to continue to work on a research project which will start soon in November. Should I write an email just saying that I already made a decision to forgo submitting the fellowship rank and will not participate in the research project? I feel like being a jerk if I did this. If I continue to go to that fellowship institute, there is a chance that I will come across the PD some time.

 

[Raryn]

I started looking for jobs and have already arranged for multiple phone interviews in late afternoons. Today, I received an email from the fellowship program (with a different faculty member) asking me to continue to work on a research project which will start soon in November. Should I write an email just saying that I already made a decision to forgo submitting the fellowship rank and will not participate in the research project? I feel like being a jerk if I did this. If I continue to go to that fellowship institute, there is a chance that I will come across the PD some time.

If you want to do that field, submit your rank list. You have a 0% chance of matching if you don't even try.