Best and Worst comments on clinical evals?

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Best: "Very professional and eager to learn. Organized and thorough notes. Asked for and responded well to feedback. Was very compassionate and worked well with team members and patients." (Medicine)

Worst: "Average student, should increase his fund of knowledge." (From a surgery attending I worked with zero times in the first 3 days before he went out of the country for the month.)

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Whatever time you get there in the morning, make it an hour earlier. Use that hour to look up stuff on your patients and make a good plan. Easy as that. If it's IM and you've got one of those IM attendings who digs it, print out a recent relevant article and work it into your plan (don't ever do this on any surgical rotation).

Really, though, honors in 3rd year is all about how much people liked you. If he didn't gel with the team, even Osler would get a P.

My guess from your post is that you may not realize how you're being perceived.


No, I really don't. In fact, 3rd year is making me think I might have Asperger's because I have heard repeatedly that I'm bad at picking up social cues, which I was never aware of before. It's also bad news because I'm interested in the more patient care-centered fields of medicine where picking up interpersonal cues is important.

On another note, though, what do you do when you're in clinic, and you're asked to talk to a patient and then present on them, including an assessment and plan? You don't get that extra time to look things up before you present, and I always end up making an idiot out of myself. It seems I'm the only one who struggles with this -- to organize your findings, make them succinct, and make a stab at an assessment plan basically literally on the fly? It's terribly nerve-wracking.

On the other hand, if a patient is already admitted, they tend to have at least something of a diagnosis and treatment plan already.
 
Lol I feel aspergery quite often. And yeah you just have to learn how to make up a half decent assessment and plan. I think they don't expect much when you've just started but as you see more patients you get an idea of what to do. If someone tells me they have back pain, I think about everything around that area. I think about kidneys, spine, muscles, bones, etc. and depending on the chief complaint, the hpi and the exam, I go with it. For example, if they tell me they're having some dysuria, fever and I notice some cva tenderness on exam, I'll tell the doc that I'm suspecting pyelo and suggest a urinalysis, urine and blood cultures and maybe imaging.
 
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On another note, though, what do you do when you're in clinic, and you're asked to talk to a patient and then present on them, including an assessment and plan? You don't get that extra time to look things up before you present, and I always end up making an idiot out of myself. It seems I'm the only one who struggles with this -- to organize your findings, make them succinct, and make a stab at an assessment plan basically literally on the fly? It's terribly nerve-wracking.

On the other hand, if a patient is already admitted, they tend to have at least something of a diagnosis and treatment plan already.

The key to present well as a student is to keep it extremely organized. Even though you'll overhear residents/fellows present very informally, don't do it as a student. Aside from how you look, I find it helps me organize my thoughts. Actually say the words "chief complaint of ______; the present illness began __<story here>______; Relevant past medical history includes _______; social history remarkable for _______; family history of _______; ROS also positive/negative for _____; on exam his/her vitals were ________; generally he/she is _____; lungs were _____ ; notables labs were ____; imaging showed _____; etc.; my ASSESSMENT is _______ and my differential [if any] would primarily include ____; my PLAN would be ____." Talk briskly and you can do a whole presentation in 2-3 minutes.

Most students screw this up by trying to jump ahead too early or trying to impress by adding bits of assessment into the HPI. Just present the HPI as simply as possible -- like a police report -- just the facts. Give yourself permission not to include everything the patient told you, especially if you don't think it's relevant. Patients say all kinds of stuff that doesn't relate to their illness; you can leave that stuff out. If it's important, the attending will ask you. I see people start waffling a lot when they've told the story but then try to throw in all the extras that don't matter.

If you stick to a standard format and say the words like little verbal signposts, you can easily do this on the fly because you don't have to waste any mental energy on format and style. Nobody expects a student to have a perfect A&P every time (or any time really); that's the things we're all in training to learn. We'll keep learning it as residents. This is the real art of medicine and is the part that requires the most complex thought. It takes little thinking to ask questions and relay a story; putting it all together into a diagnosis/plan is another thing. So give yourself permission to get it wrong a lot. Keep your A&P short and to the point in clinic unless your attending asks for long ddx and whatnot. If you think it's viral pharyngitis just say so; if it's a UTI just say that. Plans for simple things like these you should generally be able to do, but more complex issues may be beyond a student level. That said, you should pre-read about the workup and management for big common things, ie. you should know how to manage a typical new diabetic, what labs you get, etc.
 
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No, I really don't. In fact, 3rd year is making me think I might have Asperger's because I have heard repeatedly that I'm bad at picking up social cues, which I was never aware of before. It's also bad news because I'm interested in the more patient care-centered fields of medicine where picking up interpersonal cues is important.

Giving advice on this kind of thing is near impossible without knowing you, so I'll offer some general suggestions and you can sift through for anything that might apply.

1) Shut up. Seriously. Almost every socially awkward person I've met conveys their awkwardness through their words. Whether it's being too chummy with attendings or making inappropriate comments around other students/residents, or who knows what, you can fix it all by firmly pressing your top lip against your bottom lip. Stay involved and engaged in what's going on, take notes, look interested at all times, laugh when other people make jokes, smile, etc., but do it quietly. Make an effort to do whatever you need to do with the fewest words possible. Not only will this dramatically reduce most people's perceived awkwardness, but it will also give time to....

2) Listen. Really listen. Most socially awkward people I know never really listen. They're so wrapped up in what themselves and what they're going to say next and who knows what. Use your silence to really listen. There's a theater analogy that works well here, namely: even for leading actors, they spend 90% of their time on stage listening. If you watch amateur performers vs professionals, it's the listening where you can really see the difference. I think there's a lesson to be learned from that. Learn to listen really well, listen actively. This will go a long way toward helping you pick up on whatever cues you're missing.

3) Be aware of your body language. This one is hard. I find it helpful to start observing others and then you'll start noticing things in yourself. These can be big observations such as how your classmates look so uninterested when they are out of the circle and leaning against a wall or looking at their phones. They can also be small such as when someone is speaking publicly at a conference or grand rounds and they gesture, they'll sometimes hold their thumbs at 90 degree angles to their hands. Nobody does this normally in regular life, but speakers and actors and singers do it all the time. Notice the difference between students who stand their with hands in pockets vs those who stand there holding a paper and taking notes. Just become observant of what you can tell from others' body language and realize that others can read the same in you.

4) On the few times you do speak, use more questions than statements if possible. Seriously, if you just ask people about themselves and then shut up and really listen, they'll adore you. People who yammer on about themselves get annoying fast -- don't be that guy. Nearly impossible to be annoying by letting others talk and simply respond to what they say in a way that lets them keep talking.

Others might have other ideas, but those are my initial thoughts.
 
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Best: "Mr. [CherryRedDracul] was a new third year medical student who quickly integrated as a team member. He was polite, diligent, and competent. He eagerly took on any difficult assignment he was given and gave an exceptional psychiatric presentation on a severely ill eating disordered patient in Director's Rounds with very little time to prepare. He was kind and emphatic to patients and easily created a nonjudgemental rapport. He was professional at all times and consistently diligent." (Psychiatry)

Worst: "did not submit the required writeup" (Neurology)

I still haven't gotten my gen surg eval, but the clerkship director did show me in person what he wrote. It's about as glowing as the psych one and he said I would make an "excellent resident".
 
My best and worst were on the same rotation:

When I was rotating through the first of my two one-month medicine rotations in my third year, my resident, who was very popular and known throughout the hospital, wrote that I "was the best medical student I ever had" and did "the best write ups he ever saw" and gave me honors. The next month of medicine, the resident tried to fail me. I never saw the written evaluation. They didn't know what to do, so in the end they gave me an average grade. I was going into surgery, so I didn't care. I thought the episode was very funny.

That does say a lot to me about the objectivity of the evaluations, though.

On psychiatry, we were told that our lectures were the priority, and to attend no matter what. However, the psychiatrist in charge of the unit turned the grades over to a social worker, who gave me a low grade because I went to my lectures instead of going to her meetings. When I complained, the psychiartist said that "there was nothing he could do". Since I was going into surgery, I figured that a bad grade in psychiatry would help more than it would hurt. Since I did well in my match, it certainly didn't hurt me any.
 
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Best: "Mr. [CherryRedDracul] was a new third year medical student who quickly integrated as a team member. He was polite, diligent, and competent. He eagerly took on any difficult assignment he was given and gave an exceptional psychiatric presentation on a severely ill eating disordered patient in Director's Rounds with very little time to prepare. He was kind and emphatic to patients and easily created a nonjudgemental rapport. He was professional at all times and consistently diligent." (Psychiatry)

Worst: "did not submit the required writeup" (Neurology)

I still haven't gotten my gen surg eval, but the clerkship director did show me in person what he wrote. It's about as glowing as the psych one and he said I would make an "excellent resident".
My neurosurgery attending wrote it down on a sheet of paper...made a copy of it and handed it to me. He was like "If I don't do this now, I'll forget. Lemme know if you need anything else in there."
 
Most bs one I got was: "can distinguish normal PE from abnormal PE"... Like really? That's it? But my friend who also had that attending with me by the same eval.

The worst was from a resident that gave me a 2 out of 4 for problem solving skills which equates to needs improvement. And in the comments said : " needs more opportunities to show knowledge" .... Uh wtf if I need more opportunity then how do you know I need improvement? And I am 100% sure my problem solving skills are above average; other attendings and people in general have told me that. I'm just glad the evaluation doesn't show up anywhere and I still ended up doing well in the rotation and attending actually gave me a great eval.
 
Not wanting to start a new thread. How long do y'all have to wait to get evals? Have been waiting over a month for 2 evals from one rotation and getting kind of annoyed about it. Worked with the attendings for a week each. Long gap to remember much anything about their experience with you on the rotation


"Not very smart, but he's trainable."

Jesus.
 
Not wanting to start a new thread. How long do y'all have to wait to get evals? Have been waiting over a month for 2 evals from one rotation and getting kind of annoyed about it. Worked with the attendings for a week each. Long gap to remember much anything about their experience with you on the rotation




Jesus.

Longest was 8-10 weeks if I remember correctly. Maybe longer.
 
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Waited a good 2 months for some of my evals to be uploaded.
 
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Redonkulous. Guess I'll just be patient. Thanks
 
The key to present well as a student is to keep it extremely organized. Even though you'll overhear residents/fellows present very informally, don't do it as a student. Aside from how you look, I find it helps me organize my thoughts. Actually say the words "chief complaint of ______; the present illness began __<story here>______; Relevant past medical history includes _______; social history remarkable for _______; family history of _______; ROS also positive/negative for _____; on exam his/her vitals were ________; generally he/she is _____; lungs were _____ ; notables labs were ____; imaging showed _____; etc.; my ASSESSMENT is _______ and my differential [if any] would primarily include ____; my PLAN would be ____." Talk briskly and you can do a whole presentation in 2-3 minutes.

as 3rd winds down to a close, I think this should be stickied.
 
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Best: "Valuable asset to team". on a rotation where I shadowed 95% of the time.
Worst: "needs". yes that's all. needs.
 
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The worst evaluation said that I didn't seem interested in the pediatric cardiology service and that I had to be taken aside to be talked to about it.

Only problem, I wasn't ever taken aside and wasn't on the pediatric cardiology service. I was, in fact, on general peds.

I never did get it off my eval, very obnoxious.
 
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Best - "She will make an excellent house officer." medicine chief - and I hated medicine, lol! Did the best on that shelf too!
I want to go into peds but sadly they wouldn't let us see our individual evals for peds, just the MSPE comments.

Worst/Random - had one that said I did a lot of reading and demonstrated my knowledge during rounds, then the next sentence was about how I should do more reading. Another with average scores (3/5 down the board), and a good comment. The course director even asked me about the second one. At my school, I think they expect most people to get at least 4/5 unless they really suck.
 
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The worst evaluation said that I didn't seem interested in the pediatric cardiology service and that I had to be taken aside to be talked to about it.

Only problem, I wasn't ever taken aside and wasn't on the pediatric cardiology service. I was, in fact, on general peds.

I never did get it off my eval, very obnoxious.
Wow, that really sucks.
 
My worst: I question her devotion to medicine and highly doubt she will make it through residency due to lack of drive and inability to do rounds at any given time. That was on IM hospitalist service.

Psych: I was given a drug book and psych book on Monday and was told, "memorize them both" I will talk to you Friday. Was taken to a nursing home and was given a huge stack of patient charts and was told to "start writing" when I had never done chart notes before. Then I was pimped for about 20 minutes and couldn't answer any questions.

Was told that I would never be a doctor, I was a disgrace to my school and that I failed the rotation. Um, no. I called the school ahead of time and got switched. That guy was taken off the rotation list.
 
My worst: I question her devotion to medicine and highly doubt she will make it through residency due to lack of drive and inability to do rounds at any given time. That was on IM hospitalist service.

Psych: I was given a drug book and psych book on Monday and was told, "memorize them both" I will talk to you Friday. Was taken to a nursing home and was given a huge stack of patient charts and was told to "start writing" when I had never done chart notes before. Then I was pimped for about 20 minutes and couldn't answer any questions.

Was told that I would never be a doctor, I was a disgrace to my school and that I failed the rotation. Um, no. I called the school ahead of time and got switched. That guy was taken off the rotation list.

wtf...
 
My worst: I question her devotion to medicine and highly doubt she will make it through residency due to lack of drive and inability to do rounds at any given time. That was on IM hospitalist service.

Psych: I was given a drug book and psych book on Monday and was told, "memorize them both" I will talk to you Friday. Was taken to a nursing home and was given a huge stack of patient charts and was told to "start writing" when I had never done chart notes before. Then I was pimped for about 20 minutes and couldn't answer any questions.

Was told that I would never be a doctor, I was a disgrace to my school and that I failed the rotation. Um, no. I called the school ahead of time and got switched. That guy was taken off the rotation list.
And I thought my "bright red shoes" comment was bad.
 
I can't remember the phrasing but one surgery attending wrote (in all caps) that I suck. But he did that to pretty much everyone. At our pre-residency application review my adviser was like "yeah we don't put his comments in the application"
 
Yah, Can't make this stuff up. I took my eval from the first guy, marched straight into the rotations office and declared that "I do not accept this evaluation and I want to file a complaint against this attending for having a horrible rotation". That got a lot of attention and the rotation director scrambled to make things right. Let's just say that no women ever were on his service again his comments never made it into my file.

The second guy was fired from being a rotation option. I was transferred to inpatient psych for the next 3 weeks and got an A.

Bottom line: Do not take any **** from anyone on rotations especially when it come to your file and your future.

FWIW: I ended up being chief resident in residency and never had anyone question my devotion to medicine.
 
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I honestly hate the comment "needs to read more".....even tho you answer all of their lame pimp questions correct!
Mine said that but added "only because no one in medicine should stop reading"
 
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Mine said that but added "only because no one in medicine should stop reading"
lol seriously...you clearly know what I mean! Yes obviously learning is ongoing with medicine. As many have stated on this threat, it is annoying getting that comment when you demonstrate you have been reading and the comment is taken as "you didn't know anything we asked".
 
lol seriously...you clearly know what I mean! Yes obviously learning is ongoing with medicine. As many have stated on this threat, it is annoying getting that comment when you demonstrate you have been reading and the comment is taken as "you didn't know anything we asked".
Oh yeah. But it's the same reason my school throws out evals from attendings because they give 10/10. Saying "10/10 is intern/resident level" . They're forced to put something or whatever
 
What I hate worst is when you meet with your evaluator at the end of a rotation and they tell you how awesome you did, yet don't leave any comments on the eval.

I had my EM guy tell me at the end of rotation I was at the level of an EM resident at the end of intern year, or even an early 2nd year resident. And I'm not even doing EM.

On the eval when it came a couple weeks later, scores were honors but the comments section was left blank. So frustrating...
 
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Probably the funniest one from the year was at the very end of my family medicine rotation. Throughout the rotation, I had gotten along great with the site director who also happened to be my attending for most the rotation. We had a similar sense of humor and cracked jokes family medicine style (9am-430pm Monday-Friday). At the end of the rotation I took the in-house final exam and honored it. When I told him, he just looked at me and went "... really? I wasn't expecting that."

Needless to say, he gave me high pass clinically, and I ended with high pass overall. That's when I learned it doesn't pay to be bro's with your attending. :laugh:
 
Probably the funniest one from the year was at the very end of my family medicine rotation. Throughout the rotation, I had gotten along great with the site director who also happened to be my attending for most the rotation. We had a similar sense of humor and cracked jokes family medicine style (9am-430pm Monday-Friday). At the end of the rotation I took the in-house final exam and honored it. When I told him, he just looked at me and went "... really? I wasn't expecting that."

Needless to say, he gave me high pass clinically, and I ended with high pass overall. That's when I learned it doesn't pay to be bro's with your attending. :laugh:

damn that sucks lol
 
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Probably the funniest one from the year was at the very end of my family medicine rotation. Throughout the rotation, I had gotten along great with the site director who also happened to be my attending for most the rotation. We had a similar sense of humor and cracked jokes family medicine style (9am-430pm Monday-Friday). At the end of the rotation I took the in-house final exam and honored it. When I told him, he just looked at me and went "... really? I wasn't expecting that."

Needless to say, he gave me high pass clinically, and I ended with high pass overall. That's when I learned it doesn't pay to be bro's with your attending. :laugh:

Damn man. I'm done with 3rd year now, and I've learned that your perception of how the attending thinks of you is pretty much never accurate.
 
What I hate worst is when you meet with your evaluator at the end of a rotation and they tell you how awesome you did, yet don't leave any comments on the eval.

I had my EM guy tell me at the end of rotation I was at the level of an EM resident at the end of intern year, or even an early 2nd year resident. And I'm not even doing EM.

On the eval when it came a couple weeks later, scores were honors but the comments section was left blank. So frustrating...

If you honored, though, does it really matter if the comments were left blank?
 
...
 
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Got HP for this rotation: "If he was more enthusiastic, he would've gotten honors."
 
Man,
I just looked at my radiology evaluation:
This student’s performance in recall, drawing relevant distinctions and identifying important similarities and solving clinical problems, exceeded the minimal requirements to pass the course. Demonstrates excellent knowledge of concepts of radiology and is excellent at applying that to prior knowledge of anatomy and physiology. Is at a level considerably above expected for a 4th year medical student. Shows appropriate respect for other students and teacher and is willing to and adept at teaching peers. Will succeed admirably in chosen field of medicine.

Like, very generic but still one of the best generic evaluations I've gotten. Thank you for taking the time to write out a template to use that helps students for their MSPE!
 
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"he was the best student on the rotation"

I am a girl ...
 
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"very thorough physical exams" for ob/gyn...i think it was a joke because i don't recall doing much in the way of physicals
 
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Gymnast89 has an excellent personality for surgery. 2/5. (Pediatrics)

I was so confused by this eval because the numeric scores were terrible but the comment was obviously great. So I was pretty relieved when I got called into the clerkship director's office to discuss...and then I was so effing floored when she explained to me that this comment was obviously *not* great! and she insisted that going forward I should do some serious work on fixing my personality.
 
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Gymnast89 has an excellent personality for surgery. 2/5. (Pediatrics)

I was so confused by this eval because the numeric scores were terrible but the comment was obviously great. So I was pretty relieved when I got called into the clerkship director's office to discuss...and then I was so effing floored when she explained to me that this comment was obviously *not* great! and she insisted that going forward I should do some serious work on fixing my personality.

It's a backhanded compliment. If they thought you were great then they would have said you have a great personality for pediatrics
 
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It's a backhanded compliment. If they thought you were great then they would have said you have a great personality for pediatrics

Yup, thank you, have since figured it out :) It was very early in MS3 year... I was young and naive and I hadn't realized how much stereotyping went on by specialty (or that the surgery personality was so often considered a defect!)
 
Yup, thank you, have since figured it out :) It was very early in MS3 year... I was young and naive and I hadn't realized how much stereotyping went on by specialty (or that the surgery personality was so often considered a defect!)
I get one of those...primary care said I "would probably make a great surgeon."

My favorite though was how I got (for my favorite rotation and the only one I really went above and beyond for on a regular basis): "Disrespectful. Showed no interest." [after they told me the whole time what a great job I was doing] :mad:
 
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