Best and Worst comments on clinical evals?

[Gymnast89]

It's a completely inappropriate comment to put in an evaluation. If the clerkship director and/or evaluators had a problem with your personality/attitude, then they should describe the problem explicitly and give meaningful feedback, not deride an entire field in a curt and dismissive fashion.

Agreed x 1000!

I'd sought out mid-rotation feedback and the same resident then had said "Keep up the good work and keep reading!" When I brought that up with the clerkship director, she explained that peds residents pride themselves on being the nicest people in the hospital, so we can't expect them to say negative things to students.

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[Mad Jack]

Best: "He is the Chosen One, here to save us all from ourselves."

Worst: "He killed my family, and claimed for him it was merely a Tuesday."

 

[Mad Jack]

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.

My bet is that the comment was more about your being disinterested in pediatrics and mentioning wanting to go into surgery a lot, and thus it's probably just snark. Unless you never mentioned wanting to go into surgery, in which case it's just an unprofessional comment, but if you did mention potentially wanting to be a surgeon, they might have just sent this comment in as a passive-aggressive swipe at your not even entertaining their field during your rotation.

 

[Gymnast89]

My bet is that the comment was more about your being disinterested in pediatrics and mentioning wanting to go into surgery a lot, and thus it's probably just snark. Unless you never mentioned wanting to go into surgery, in which case it's just an unprofessional comment, but if you did mention potentially wanting to be a surgeon, they might have just sent this comment in as a passive-aggressive swipe at your not even entertaining their field during your rotation.

I like the optimism! but unfortunately it was the latter -- I had no idea I wanted to do surgery until long after all this peds confusion.

In retrospect, perhaps I should write the resident a thank you note.

 

[Hangry]

Agreed x 1000!

I'd sought out mid-rotation feedback and the same resident then had said "Keep up the good work and keep reading!" When I brought that up with the clerkship director, she explained that peds residents pride themselves on being the nicest people in the hospital, so we can't expect them to say negative things to students.

Classic pediatrics passive aggression. I think they get so used to putting on a face for the kids that they start doing it with other people as well instead of just telling you to your face.

To be clear, I don't mean to paint all of peds in a negative light. Just like every field, most of their residents are fantastic and great to work with, but the bad ones really stand out and passive aggression seems to be their modus operandi. At least a mean surgery or ob resident will give you feedback during the rotation that you can work with.

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

Let's be real.
The only time having a surgeon personality is considered to be a good thing is when you are on surgery.

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

Worst evaluation in Med school came from a pediatrician.
Best evaluation came from an anesthesiologist.
FM attending felt I'd be better suited in EM.
EM attending felt I would not be well suited in EM, felt I would be better suited in FM.
OBGYN felt I'd be best suited in OBGYN.
IM thought I'd be better suited in anesthesia or EM.
Surgery thought I'd be well suited for surgery.

I was the most confused Med student ever.

 

[J ROD]

Worst was my clerkship director in Peds verbally acting my disability several times. Even our Associate Dean said it was so wrong during my Dean's letter and told me it had no bearing and would not be mentioned.

Going in I would have expected medical professionals to be more sensitive to my disability but they have been the worse and most insensitive.

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

Seems like academic pediatricians are a bunch of dicks.

 

[J ROD]

OBGYN and Peds were my worse. Surgery folks were ok. As long as you can handle folks messing with you.

 

[zero0]

I look forward to joining the circus in a few years.

 

[QualityProcess]

"Very adequate."
Edit:
Sorry, it was "VERY ADEQUATE." in all caps

 

[docdionne]

Best: "One of the top 3 students we've ever had." - hospitalist at the VA.

Worst: "Will benefit from guidance in maintaining professional distance." - Psych attending. Grade A D-bag.
On the first day of my rotation, he asked me what I wanted to learn and I told him I wanted to learn how to have a trusting relationship with a psych patient, but maintain the professional distance and objectivity necessary for proper psychiatric diagnosis (the conversation is the laboratory, all that jazz). But, ya know, thanks for making it sound like I gave my patients lap dances.

 

[iBS1972]

I know that residency recruiters use "code words" such as 'excellent' or 'good' to convey relatively how well a student did in medical school. I'm guessing the same applies in clerkship evals too? I got a couple of evals, one of which was medicine (which I wasn't too happy about), that said "performed at a very good level" or "had a very good fund of knowledge" or "was able to provide a good differential". Just wondering if these meant that I didn't really do so well.

 

[CajunMedic]

Worst/Weirdest: Peds MD preceptor "Not many opportunities to utilize OMT in peds...though I understand he may have worked with one of my teenage patients ( before I entered the room ", now every other preceptor just clicked "N/A" on the OMT questions.

Best: Psychiatry "Rarely are you blessed with a student such as CajunMedic. I think the totality of his life experiance combined with his obvious intellectual gifts will produce a fine physician. He has certainly stolen the march on his collegues."

 

[Redpancreas]

One of my friends who's AOA, got a 3 SD from mean Step score, who wants to do Ortho knew a lot ton on surgery. When it was time for evals on surgery, the attending wrote: "Very clever" for his evaluation but proceeded to give him straight "meets expectations".

On Psychiatry, I got the worst eval I've had so far. To paraphrase, it basically said that I am clearly a bright young man, but I need to learn to be more vocal so I can share what I'm thinking. While at first glance, it may look like a back-handed compliment but at the same time if someone is really putting my app. under a lens, it'll appear as if I wasn't participating on rounds or something.

 

[ActinicKeratosis]

On a rotation I got evaluations from two residents who were on the same team as me. My presentations were always given with both of them present. I never spent any individual time with either of them. One resident said I was one of the most knowledgeable students he has ever worked with. The other resident gave me "below average" ratings on medical knowledge. I just wish I could go back and do more third year because it was just so great.

 

[doyouhaveaflag]

On a rotation I got evaluations from two residents who were on the same team as me. My presentations were always given with both of them present. I never spent any individual time with either of them. One resident said I was one of the most knowledgeable students he has ever worked with. The other resident gave me "below average" ratings on medical knowledge. I just wish I could go back and do more third year because it was just so great.

Ugh, typical.

I feel like how I actually perform makes no difference at all on evals (except maybe in the comments, but do people read those?). It's just the luck of the draw who you end up with - the high graders or low graders. The eval system kinda blows.

 

[ActinicKeratosis]

Ugh, typical.

I feel like how I actually perform makes no difference at all on evals (except maybe in the comments, but do people read those?). It's just the luck of the draw who you end up with - the high graders or low graders. The eval system kinda blows.

You want to know the way to get good evaluations? It's simple. Become friends with your residents and attendings. Go out to lunch with them. Get beers with them after work. You can spend all day trying to perfect your presentation or ensuring that your medical knowledge is pimp proof. However this means nothing if your co-workers do not like you. My best evaluations have always come from people with whom I have befriended and have hung out with outside of work. Sad but true.

 

[tux4]

Ugh, typical.

I feel like how I actually perform makes no difference at all on evals (except maybe in the comments, but do people read those?). It's just the luck of the draw who you end up with - the high graders or low graders. The eval system kinda blows.

It doesn't at all. I did an away rotation where I would put out ideas during resident conference and some attendings/residents said that was really great, dominated simulations with my contribution, and had a bunch of residents say they were impressed with what I knew. Then at the end, my eval was above average with an average/below average fund of knowledge. Nowhere else have I been told this. What pissed me off was the lack of feedback and no guidance how to improve myself if they thought this way, which just supports the krap.


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[CajunMedic]

This was the most ludicrous piece of feedback I recieved, pretty much in my entire medical career (to include the 15 years in EMS). Now, this is 3 months after the rotation, 2 weeks after AOA match and the day that ACGME lists were due to be certified. This was an audition rotation with interview.

Under "Interpersonal and Communication Skills:" Often does not read cues of other colleagues when working. Would talk and interrupt when others were talking (including attending)

Final comments-same eval:One area I would recommend he work on his in understanding when he should speak and when he should listen. There were several times when he would interrupt other team members including attendings..

Now, this is an attending that threw an absolute hissy-fit during didactics, yelling, screaming, and telling the assembled attendings, residents, and students that "if you don't like it, you can leave and find another residency program"

To quote Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons"...."Worst. Evaluation. Ever..."

 

[TeddyBoomBoom]

This was the most ludicrous piece of feedback I recieved, pretty much in my entire medical career (to include the 15 years in EMS). Now, this is 3 months after the rotation, 2 weeks after AOA match and the day that ACGME lists were due to be certified. This was an audition rotation with interview.

Under "Interpersonal and Communication Skills:" Often does not read cues of other colleagues when working. Would talk and interrupt when others were talking (including attending)

Final comments-same eval:One area I would recommend he work on his in understanding when he should speak and when he should listen. There were several times when he would interrupt other team members including attendings..

Now, this is an attending that threw an absolute hissy-fit during didactics, yelling, screaming, and telling the assembled attendings, residents, and students that "if you don't like it, you can leave and find another residency program"

To quote Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons"...."Worst. Evaluation. Ever..."

Jesus Christ

 

[Oso]

I hate when you make 1 mistake and it ends up on the evaluation making it seem like it's a chronic issue.

"Oso needs to be more proactive, he often would enter the room after the attending had already started the patient encounter" (primary care)

* this happened ONCE, on like my second day of the rotation, because the attending told me the wrong room number so I was just sitting there waiting for the room to be ready. After a few minutes I asked one of the nurses and found out which was the correct room and went in. The attending was there and they were still just catching up and talking about the weather. Perhaps I should have confirmed the room number or done something different, but COME ON, don't make it seem like I'm frequently just sitting on my ass until I finally feel like going to talk to a patient.


"Oso would frequently miss abnormal lab values in his presentations"
* It was the day right after the presidential election and was, I admit, a little distraught. I failed to mention a K+ of 3.4 when discussing the electrolyte panel. Otherwise the presentation was solid. Again, thank you for making it seem like I'm just ****ing up every day.

 

[Psai]

I hate when you make 1 mistake and it ends up on the evaluation making it seem like it's a chronic issue.

"Oso needs to be more proactive, he often would enter the room after the attending had already started the patient encounter" (primary care)

* this happened ONCE, on like my second day of the rotation, because the attending told me the wrong room number so I was just sitting there waiting for the room to be ready. After a few minutes I asked one of the nurses and found out which was the correct room and went in. The attending was there and they were still just catching up and talking about the weather. Perhaps I should have confirmed the room number or done something different, but COME ON, don't make it seem like I'm frequently just sitting on my ass until I finally feel like going to talk to a patient.


"Oso would frequently miss abnormal lab values in his presentations"
* It was the day right after the presidential election and was, I admit, a little distraught. I failed to mention a K+ of 3.4 when discussing the electrolyte panel. Otherwise the presentation was solid. Again, thank you for making it seem like I'm just ****ing up every day.

Best way to avoid this is to not get labs. We get too many as it is.

 

[Oso]

Best way to avoid this is to not get labs. We get too many as it is.

I have since stopped ordering all labs and imaging.

Can’t miss important data if there’s no data in the first place

 

[Rirruto]

I have since stopped ordering all labs and imaging.

Can’t miss important data if there’s no data in the first place

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