CUTTING THE GORDIAN-KNOT - A 2-PART APPROACH TO THE EVALUATION AND PROFESSIONAL-DEVELOPMENT OF RESIDENTS

There is chronic dissatisfaction among both faculty and students about the process and effectiveness of resident performance evaluation. The author asserts that the source of this problem is the current practic e of merging the two different purposes for evaluation: to monitor res idents' meeting of performance standards and to provide guidance for r esidents' professional development. By attempting to meet both quality -control and guidance obligations using one set of objective data, mos t residency programs fall short in meeting one of these aims. The comm on preoccupation with psychometric precision, objectivity, and the sta tistical processing of forms frequently distracts users from making ef fective use of evaluation information. The proposed solution is to div ide resident evaluation into two simpler, entirely separate and distin ct systems-neither of which would look much like the current system. T here would be a faculty-controlled, quality-control system focused on screening for minimal performance standards. This would use simple, qu alitative measures for early warning and rapid follow-up. The second e valuation system would be a resident-controlled, guidance-oriented sys tem focused on self-assessment, peer and faculty coaching, and reflect ion. The hypothesized benefits of this approach include an improvement in residents' motivation and performance, an increase in residents' s elf-direction, and an enhancement of communication between residents a nd faculty members.