Evals were so poor for my last rotation I have to do 2 extra weeks of it. This was a complete shock to me as I had gotten along well with everyone and never had any complaints.
So far the only specific thing that I was told was "doesn't take feedback well"- the thing is I've had ZERO feedback. I mean none, zilch, nada. Means someone is saying they gave me feedback which they absolutely didn't do. Don't wanna be a problem child and call someone a liar but don't think they should be able to do this.
This is driving me into a bad spiral.
This is the real world. Attendings/Residents are human and commonly exaggerate or bend things to fit their often preconceived narrative. It's not about what you said or did, but how you made someone feel which will be important for the rest of your life. Consider yourself lucky you've run into this situation early on.
Your case is pretty common. First off, you don't need a formal Friday mid-rotation/end of rotation sit down to break down your performance. It would be odd if an attending gave you that, asked for your thoughts, and you said "I don't like your feedback", prompting them to write that in your eval right? What most likely happened is through interactions with the residents or the attendings, someone got that impression. Usually when residents/attendings ask questions, they're doing it as a segue way to teach you something. Students commonly misinterpret the situation and see it as nitpicking, etc. when their answer is critiqued. Another common situation is when you work really hard on something (ex. discharge summary) and the resident says it's not good for XYZ. They're probably right because how would you know what's important, you've never done a DC summary before and that's all interns do for a living. When you hear feedback, think of whether it's helpful and if it is, nod your head and say, good to know. Thanks. Yeah you stayed up last night and took your own free time to write the summary, but no one cares...what matters is the result.
The mistake your evaluator(s) made was to blindside you with this in a summative evaluation. It's petty AF. If you think about why they did it though, they probably disliked giving you the feedback and avoided giving it. Regardless there's no excuse as residents/attendings should have experience with this and have the moxie to confront the situation instead of writing comments in the final evaluation. Unfortunately, there is 0 accountability for this.
Those who residents/attendings answer to (program director) are not the ones you answer to (clerkship director). The latter is usually lower in rank than the former. This is why students don't win he said, she said arguments because it would first take a clerkship director believing you without evidence and then being brave to confront the program director about XYZ when med student evals are the last thing they're worried about.
If you feel like it's an issue, just take a second to introspect about how you interact. Do you seem rushed? Do you make eye contact? Do you smile? (this is important!) Ask a trusted peer how your interactions come off as when you're in a team setting and if they don't say much, tell them this is what XYZ said, not to look for validation from them but to gather any meaningful advice
Regarding what you do...Do not call it out, do not accuse someone of lying (very serious allegation you need proof for). You only challenge negative summative feedback if you have definitive proof which is impossible in this situation as any situation you had can easily be framed to fit their narrative. You could reject their narrative but it's a he said/she said. Even if they were lying, which deep down only they know, there's no way you can prove that. Here's an example of something you challenge:
Eval: The student routinely did not show up to clinic.
Reality: You actually went every time and have EMR logs of all your patients you saw and submit them to the clerkship director with dates/times.
That's challengeable. Your situation isn't.
In fact,
(and I hate to point out the irony of the situation when you're feeling down-) you've just been provided feedback...and you don't seem to be taking it well (
"This is driving me into a bad spiral") so I would actually do some introspection. The more of that you do now, the less you'll have to do in residency. Keep in mind this doesn't make you a bad person or someone who's behind his or her peers. Every person struggles with this at some stage in their journey, but no one admits it because why would they want people to know that?
