Presentation Description
Samantha Halman
Kori LaDonna
Kori LaDonna
Purpose:
To be successful, academic physicians must not only care for patients and teach learners – they must also be excellent researchers, mentors, administrators, and leaders. Assessment and constructive feedback should drive professional development at all levels but efforts are largely focused on trainees. Self-doubt about the validity of achievements and career are not unique to learners. We explored academic physicians’ perspectives about the role evaluations and feedback play in their professional development, including how they obtain the constructive insights to foster growth across their various roles.
To be successful, academic physicians must not only care for patients and teach learners – they must also be excellent researchers, mentors, administrators, and leaders. Assessment and constructive feedback should drive professional development at all levels but efforts are largely focused on trainees. Self-doubt about the validity of achievements and career are not unique to learners. We explored academic physicians’ perspectives about the role evaluations and feedback play in their professional development, including how they obtain the constructive insights to foster growth across their various roles.
Methods:
Informed by constructivist grounded theory, we interviewed fourteen physicians about their evaluation and feedback experiences. Data collection and analysis occurred iteratively; themes were identified using constant comparative analysis.
Informed by constructivist grounded theory, we interviewed fourteen physicians about their evaluation and feedback experiences. Data collection and analysis occurred iteratively; themes were identified using constant comparative analysis.
Results:
All participants were generally dissatisfied with the feedback they currently receive, discarding most sources as useless for informing their professional development. Specifically, feedback generated via annual performance reviews or teaching evaluations were dismissed as “tick box check-ins” generating objective, numerical productivity metrics that primarily benefitted hospital/university administration, not their own development. Instead, most participants, including senior faculty leaders, were thirsty for more personalized guidance, seeking “advice” from informal sources about subjective performance aspects such as leadership style and work-life balance. This “advice” was perceived as meaningful, but distinct from feedback.
All participants were generally dissatisfied with the feedback they currently receive, discarding most sources as useless for informing their professional development. Specifically, feedback generated via annual performance reviews or teaching evaluations were dismissed as “tick box check-ins” generating objective, numerical productivity metrics that primarily benefitted hospital/university administration, not their own development. Instead, most participants, including senior faculty leaders, were thirsty for more personalized guidance, seeking “advice” from informal sources about subjective performance aspects such as leadership style and work-life balance. This “advice” was perceived as meaningful, but distinct from feedback.
Conclusions:
Dissatisfaction with formal feedback and evaluation processes may result from a disconnect between the current prioritization of performance metrics and the holistic personal and professional growth that academic physicians want. Narrow conceptualizations of feedback may also interfere with perceived utility, perhaps explaining an on-going quest for constructive feedback despite already receiving meaningful “advice”. Rather than discarding formal feedback sources altogether, triangulating objective metrics with “advice” could generate the ‘holistic’ feedback grail physicians seek.
Dissatisfaction with formal feedback and evaluation processes may result from a disconnect between the current prioritization of performance metrics and the holistic personal and professional growth that academic physicians want. Narrow conceptualizations of feedback may also interfere with perceived utility, perhaps explaining an on-going quest for constructive feedback despite already receiving meaningful “advice”. Rather than discarding formal feedback sources altogether, triangulating objective metrics with “advice” could generate the ‘holistic’ feedback grail physicians seek.
References (maximum three)
LaDonna K, Ginsburg S, Watling C. "Rising to the Level of Your Incompetence": What Physicians' Self-Assessment of Their Performance Reveals About the Imposter Syndrome in Medicine. Acad Med. 2018 May;93(5):763-768.
Lockyer J, Armson H, Chesluk B, Dornan T, Holmboe E, Loney E, Mann K, Sargeant J. Feedback data sources that inform physician self-assessment. Med Teach. 2011;33(2):e113-20
Mann K, van der Vleuten C, Eva K, Armson H, Chesluk B, Dornan T, Holmboe E, Lockyer J, Loney E, Sargeant J. Tensions in informed self-assessment: how the desire for feedback and reticence to collect and use it can conflict. Acad Med. 2011 Sep;86(9):1120-7