MSPE Negative Comments

[lorian99]

Previewed my MSPE recently and found comments from a preceptor on my surgery rotation that reads something like "behind peers in knowledge base," "seemed unprepared for OR," and pretty much that I had trouble answering basic questions about procedures. Preceptor never expressed concern about any of this during my rotation. The only other eval from my surgery rotation says literally the opposite, that I was prepared for the OR and above average in knowledge base compared to peers. The rest of my MSPE pretty much doesn't contain anything negative. My dean states that only the clerkship director can change the comments but that it might be too late to do anything about it. I'm planning to apply for psychiatry residencies this fall, so should I bother with trying to change this? If it can't be taken off my MSPE, how bad does it look?

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[Splenda88]

Previewed my MSPE recently and found comments from a preceptor on my surgery rotation that reads something like "behind peers in knowledge base," "seemed unprepared for OR," and pretty much that I had trouble answering basic questions about procedures. Preceptor never expressed concern about any of this during my rotation. The only other eval from my surgery rotation says literally the opposite, that I was prepared for the OR and above average in knowledge base compared to peers. The rest of my MSPE pretty much doesn't contain anything negative. My dean states that only the clerkship director can change the comments but that it might be too late to do anything about it. I'm planning to apply for psychiatry residencies this fall, so should I bother with trying to change this? If it can't be taken off my MSPE, how bad does it look?

I think you should try. If they don't want to, I think you will be ok if your stats are ok and other clerkship evals were good.

I had the same issue. Had a HP in surgery with bad comment and my school did not put the comment on my MSPE.

 

[DrStephenStrange]

My school allows us to remove 1 bad comment in our MSPE. It'd be surprising if your school doesn't allow you to.

 

[IWishIWasBuff]

I thought the job of whoever puts together the MSPE is to…you know…make their own students sound perfect? Or am I mistaken? Is this a case of throwing some students under the bus so the MSPE won’t be inflated and will still hold weight for those who get good comments?

 

[esob]

It's in your dean's best interest to allow you to remove the negative comment from your letter. It makes the dean appear incapable of managing one of their primary duties. It's also in the clerkship director's best interest since such incongruency from two evaluators on the same rotation make it appear that the clerkship director has failed to discharge their responsibilities either in making known to the student what the expectations are or in making known to the evaluators what the expectations are. None of this is arguable, ofc, because we all know you can't argue with people in academic medicine. However, it should give you hope that if they have any common sense left, that they will amend the letter.

 

[mrbreakfast]

You can try, but anecdotally I've never heard of an attending's comments being removed. At my med school one resident would routinely destroy medical students on evals and all his comments would be removed.

In the grand scheme, I don't think this feedback (from surgery) will be very damaging. I did have one mediocre comment on my MSPE that I stressed about, but was never asked about it in any interview.

 

[7331poas]

So absurd that we basically cull away any negative comments to give the impression that an applicant has zero flaws. Of course, this is the name of the game so you should follow along. That being said, I think we should mandate that all comments are included in the MSPE no matter what (along with info regarding the relationship of the evaluator with the student).

 

[Ganon]

So absurd that we basically cull away any negative comments to give the impression that an applicant has zero flaws. Of course, this is the name of the game so you should follow along. That being said, I think we should mandate that all comments are included in the MSPE no matter what (along with info regarding the relationship of the evaluator with the student).

Only if there is reciprocal retribution offered to students.

The dominator hierarchy of med ed is toxic, continues to be shown to be toxic, and needs to be reformed, not strengthened.

 

[DrStephenStrange]

So absurd that we basically cull away any negative comments to give the impression that an applicant has zero flaws. Of course, this is the name of the game so you should follow along. That being said, I think we should mandate that all comments are included in the MSPE no matter what (along with info regarding the relationship of the evaluator with the student).

I have one negative comment on my evaluations so far, and from my surgery preceptor of all people who is well known to give low grades, negative comments and even fail students over stupid stuff. I am not even applying to surgery, so leaving that comment in there won't do me or my school any good, and I don't see why it would be of interest to PDs in the specialty I am applying either.

 

[7331poas]

I have one negative comment on my evaluations so far, and from my surgery preceptor of all people who is well known to give low grades, negative comments and even fail students over stupid stuff. I am not even applying to surgery, so leaving that comment in there won't do me or my school any good, and I don't see why it would be of interest to PDs in the specialty I am applying either.

I say leave the comment there and give information about that evaluators grading patterns

 

[Prehealth1011]

I know some poor souls who went through this. It was always either surgery or OB at our hospital. Our school took care of it no questions asked

 

[deleted1100659]

Previewed my MSPE recently and found comments from a preceptor on my surgery rotation that reads something like "behind peers in knowledge base," "seemed unprepared for OR," and pretty much that I had trouble answering basic questions about procedures. Preceptor never expressed concern about any of this during my rotation. The only other eval from my surgery rotation says literally the opposite, that I was prepared for the OR and above average in knowledge base compared to peers. The rest of my MSPE pretty much doesn't contain anything negative. My dean states that only the clerkship director can change the comments but that it might be too late to do anything about it. I'm planning to apply for psychiatry residencies this fall, so should I bother with trying to change this? If it can't be taken off my MSPE, how bad does it look?

That is crazy to me, it’s in the schools best interest to help you match so they should be broadcasting your strengths in the deans letter, not showcasing subjective bad reviews.

That being said, in my psych residency program we had people interview who had negative comments like that. Thankfully it’s in surgery and not psych. If everything else looks good, the comment can be seen as an anomaly

back when I was a third year, my surgery preceptor said “you have hands made for psych”. Well he wasn’t wrong, lol.

 

[deleted1081396]

When I'm a resident and attending every single student is going to get all 5's from me.

 

[TakotsuboOkazaki]

I thought the job of whoever puts together the MSPE is to…you know…make their own students sound perfect? Or am I mistaken? Is this a case of throwing some students under the bus so the MSPE won’t be inflated and will still hold weight for those who get good comments?

That’s how we do it. I suppose it is a little disingenuous to omit the less flattering comments, but i’m not complaining over here.

 

[operaman]

When I'm a resident and attending every single student is going to get all 5's from me.

That's what I do! Much to the chagrin of some deans who are all in on the whole milestones thing. We had a meeting and I asked what the average was for the class and on the milestone list it implied that 'average' meant that most medical students there were performing at the level of a chief resident/fellow. When I pointed this out and that so far all my students were performing like good medical students, there was a lot of hemming and hawing, so I said I'm just giving perfect scores to anyone with a pulse until literally everyone gets on board.


OP - try and get them removed, but nobody in psych is going to care so long as that's the only anomaly on your MSPE. I suspect many psychiatrists had similar experiences on their surgery rotations. If you get asked in interviews about it, just say how all the surgeons you worked with were very supportive of your career in psychiatry!

 

[lorian99]

Spoke to both my dean and surgery clerkship director this week, and neither are willing to do anything about the comments, so it looks like they'll be on my MSPE. Kinda bummed, but glad to hear that it shouldn't be too much of an issue; everything else on my MSPE is good. Thank y'all for the comments and kind words.

 

[JP2740]

So absurd that we basically cull away any negative comments to give the impression that an applicant has zero flaws. Of course, this is the name of the game so you should follow along. That being said, I think we should mandate that all comments are included in the MSPE no matter what (along with info regarding the relationship of the evaluator with the student).

Youre assuming that these negative comments always have value… it’s not some sort of fair system of perfect evaluation that Youre getting. It’s arbitrary bull****. One student could get the upper hand strictly on the specific attending they had. It’s dumb

 

[Apocalyptic Scalpel]

Back when they were still “dean’s letters” we were told that we might as well not even ask to have any of our negative evaluations removed…not happening.

I managed to get a couple of vaguely negative remarks removed from mine nonetheless by pointing out that the comments were grammatically incorrect and therefore it was difficult to interpret what the evaluator meant to say. To think that at one point I had felt that all that time diagramming sentences had been wasted!

 

[Dantes]

When I'm a resident and attending every single student is going to get all 5's from me.

Yup! If someone is truly exceptional my plan is to include that in the comments with specific examples. Otherwise I'm not gonna continue to play this bull**** game

 

[Lawpy]

Spoke to both my dean and surgery clerkship director this week, and neither are willing to do anything about the comments, so it looks like they'll be on my MSPE. Kinda bummed, but glad to hear that it shouldn't be too much of an issue; everything else on my MSPE is good. Thank y'all for the comments and kind words.

Wow looks like your school is screwing you over. Sorry OP

The inconsistency in school's approaches to MSPEs is maddening.

 

[7331poas]

Youre assuming that these negative comments always have value… it’s not some sort of fair system of perfect evaluation that Youre getting. It’s arbitrary bull****. One student could get the upper hand strictly on the specific attending they had. It’s dumb

Under the same logic, the positive* comments do not have value either.

 

[Ho0v-man]

Unless it’s your desired field, I don’t think this matters as much as people think. My surgery comments were something along the lines of “please consider showing any initiative” lol


My school asked for positives and negatives from every preceptor. And all comments stayed on the mspe. So everyone at my school had a mandatory negative comment from every rotation. It never came up.

I really think they’re just looking for patterns of unprofessionalism like never showing up on time, etc.

 

[JP2740]

Under the same logic, the position comments do not have value either.

Youre right they don’t. It’s all bull****. I gave all my students perfect scores and would write dumb **** in there like performed above the level of a senior resident just to troll the system

 

[deleted1081396]

Yup! If someone is truly exceptional my plan is to include that in the comments with specific examples. Otherwise I'm not gonna continue to play this bull**** game

All my students will get outstanding comments too. If they really want a field badly it'll show in their Shelf score. This system of 3rd year evals is complete bullsh*t and I'm not playing it. No one should be locked out of their dream career because they happen to get a preceptor who gives straight 3's to everyone (like my FM and EM evaluators) or, like my psychiatry evaluator, doesn't know how to fill out the damn form properly.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

All my students will get outstanding comments too. If they really want a field badly it'll show in their Shelf score. This system of 3rd year evals is complete bullsh*t and I'm not playing it. No one should be locked out of their dream career because they happen to get a preceptor who gives straight 3's to everyone (like my FM and EM evaluators) or, like my psychiatry evaluator, doesn't know how to fill out the damn form properly.

 

[treebeardette]

All y'all saying you're going to give perfect scores to all the med students, just wait til you get that obnoxious one who tries to correct the PGY-4 on how they're performing a complex closure. I wish those were rare, but they're not. But overall agree with the sentiment. My strategy is to give straight 5's, but one 4 just to show that there's "something" to improve on. Nobody's called me out on it yet.

For the OP applying to psych, if my psych friends are anything to judge by, your poor comments from a surgeon will be seen as a badge of honor, not a red flag. God bless them.