One of the facts of life for junior doctors where I work is term assessments. These go through all the way until adulthood (ie getting your FRACW*), but the prescribed form is different depending on your level. I've only been in generalist jobs so far so none of this post applies to specialist training jobs.
Part of the process of evalution is trainee self-evaluation. There is an episode of Scrubs
which highlights the objectives of this. The NSW assessment form has a range of categories in which trainees can be
- clearly below standard
- borderline
- at standard
- clearly above standard
Previously in my assessments I have just ticked myself as being at standard in every category. As Cox says, I'm not great, I'm just ok. I've never had anything below "at standard", thankfully, and in most terms my supervisor will pick a couple of categories and put them as "clearly above". Usually these are the same few topics, and by now I have a clear sense of my strengths and those areas which, while not exactly weaknesses, aren't things areas where I should necessarily be giving tutorials.
This week I was pretty fresh from remembering that patient, so I gave myself a few extra "above standards" for things like clinical knowledge and managing acutely ill patients. I went to my evaluation...
and my assessor just agreed with me, checkbox for checkbox.
I wonder if I should have given myself a few more.
* Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Whatever.