How much do fellowship evaluations matter?

[Bowel Movers and Shakers]

I was wondering this with a few colleagues the other day. I'm a current first year fellow and after talking with a few other fellows in the program, it seems that certain attendings here are quite well known to just give straight "3's" (out of 5) down the line. I currently have one of these attendings and am now coming to grips with the fact that no matter how hard I work, how well prepared I am coming to clinic, how much I read, I'm still going to just get all 3's. Rather than worry about this or care, I decided to just embrace this fact and focus on my own learning and growth. Except now I'm actually wondering... do evaluations in fellowship even really matter all that much? I mean, we're already here, there's nothing much to apply for really after this but jobs, and barring some horrible red flag of an evaluation or something like that, is there really any harm in receiving a few "average" evaluations? Just curious what everyone thinks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[holaho]

You will get the salary of a pcp if you get straight 3s. Anything below a 4 means you don’t get a signing bonus.

But seriously, no one will ever look at your evaluations except you and your PD. I stopped checking them few months into intern year.

 

[osprey099]

I was wondering this with a few colleagues the other day. I'm a current first year fellow and after talking with a few other fellows in the program, it seems that certain attendings here are quite well known to just give straight "3's" (out of 5) down the line. I currently have one of these attendings and am now coming to grips with the fact that no matter how hard I work, how well prepared I am coming to clinic, how much I read, I'm still going to just get all 3's. Rather than worry about this or care, I decided to just embrace this fact and focus on my own learning and growth. Except now I'm actually wondering... do evaluations in fellowship even really matter all that much? I mean, we're already here, there's nothing much to apply for really after this but jobs, and barring some horrible red flag of an evaluation or something like that, is there really any harm in receiving a few "average" evaluations? Just curious what everyone thinks

I think we are inherently primed to get the best evals and anything less than a stellar eval is a knock on our ability/confidence. In reality, like you said, we're fellows now and we've made it. I highly doubt whether or not you get a 3s vs 5s on your evals really matter if your goal is to be a community oncologist. Maybe it matters more if you're going in the academic world but even then, I'd imagine your letters of recommendation/ability to obtain grants matter a lot more.