Peer assessment of professionalism: a five-year experience in medical clerkship

Faculty assessment of students' professionalism is often based upon sporadic exposure to students. Peers are in a unique position to provide valid judgments of these behaviors.

(1) To learn if peer assessments of professional conduct correlate with traditional performance measures; (2) to determine if peer assessments of professionalism influence the designation of honors, and (3) to explore student and faculty opinions regarding peer assessment.

Internal Medicine Clerkship at Southern Illinois University.

Since 2001 anonymous student peer assessments of professionalism have been used in assigning clerkship grades.

Peer assessments of professionalism had weak, though significant, correlations with faculty ratings (r = 0.29), performance on the NBME subject test (r = 0.28), and performance on a cumulative performance assessment (r = 0.30), and did not change the total number of honors awarded. A majority of students (71%) felt comfortable evaluating their peers, and 77% would keep the peer evaluation procedure in place. A majority of faculty (83%) indicated that peer assessments added valuable information.

Peer assessments of professional conduct have little correlation with other performance measures, are more likely to have a positive influence on final clerkship grades, and have little impact on awarding honors.