Aligning Competency Committee and Observing Faculty Needs in Pursuit of Useful Written Evaluations of Residents

End-of-rotation narrative evaluations by faculty of Internal Medicine residents provide feedback to residents directly and to the program leadership to assess resident competency; however, observing faculty often lack an understanding of what information is useful to the program leadership. Faculty also face barriers in completing evaluations and formulating high-quality evaluations. We sought to qualitatively evaluate the interplay of the needs of the program leadership and barriers faculty face in providing high-quality evaluations.

We conducted a descriptive qualitative study through semistructured interviews with six faculty with program leadership positions and six observing clinical faculty at a single large Internal Medicine residency program.

Interview themes elucidated a multifaceted process that observing faculty must navigate in writing narrative evaluations and the important features of a useful narrative evaluation itself. Faculty must navigate assessment committee needs and their own competing priorities and be skilled in observing residents and navigating emotional barriers with residents. Successfully navigating these factors allows them to produce useful narrative evaluations that ultimately inform assessment committee decisions.

Understanding the complex dynamics of observing faculty factors and assessment committee needs can help guide future interventions to improve the quality and utility of written evaluations in assessing residents.