Improving the quality of emergency medicine rotation/clerkship evaluations

The process of evaluating the performance of medical students and/or residents during emergency medicine clinical rotations is constrained by several potential shortcomings. These constraints can limit the quality of the information provided to the student/resident, as well as that provided to the sponsoring institution. During the course of an academic year at United States Air Force Medical Center, Wright-Patterson, a number of medical students, interns, and residents rotate through the emergency department. The limitations identified in the process of evaluating these trainees include the (1) retrospective nature of the data provided in evaluations; (2) the lack of clear pre-established performance criteria; (3) the time constraints placed on preceptors; and (4) the incremental nature of the observations of performance during emergency medicine rotations. The evaluation tool developed to address these limitations is presented as a mechanism to help improve the ability of educators to evaluate and record performance during emergency medicine rotations.