Unless we were or have been self-employed for most or all of our working lives, we have all probably been subject to annual, or perhaps even more frequent, performance appraisals at our jobs.
It was probably not something we really would look forward to, even if we were reasonably confident that it would go well, just something we wanted to get over with.
Well, a little research seems to say that doctors and medical staff who are not self-employed, but who work in an organization, such as a hospital, clinic, or other health entity, that is, who have a medical "boss" or "bosses" that they report to, generally have a regular performance appraisal experience, probably annual, pretty much like the ones that we have all had at our jobs.
And apparently medical people have the same concerns, even apprehensions, that the rest of us have during appraisal time.
I guess there was no reason to think that it should be any different for doctors or medical staff, although the nature of what they do, as healers who can have such a profound influence on our lives, may have brought some to think that how they are evaluated might be different in some way.
But apparently not.
As one might expect, there are lots of articles out there on performance evaluation in general, and a fair number on doing so for medical people in particular.
Here are some general observations I picked up from reading just a few of them.
1. There doesn't seem to be any "standard" or "common" way of doing these evaluations for medical types. It seems to depend on what each supervisory entity wants to do. There is even a great variety of forms that can be used:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=physician%20performance%20review%20template&form=iqfrml&first=1Typical form:
https://summitpracticesolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/47/2015/10/performance-appraisal-form-for-doctor-1.pdfBut I also learned that it's common for one of two approaches to be used in evaluations: either a single supervisor to whom the doctor reports, or, in some places, a "medical practice evaluation committee," usually composed of senior medical staff who do the job.
2. Interestingly, though, I read that doctors can be rather defensive when being evaluated. It is suggested that the reason for this is that doctors have usually been high-achievers most of their lives, both academically and in other ways, and may chaff at being told during evaluation that they are not perfect, and need to improve in some area(s).
3. Nurses, however, from what I read, seem to be more amenable to suggestions for improvement.
4. There is some disagreement on whether the form of the appraisal should be number-based (number of patients seen, number of operations performed, etc.) or descript
ive (evaluating performance verbally).
5. Some call for more standardization among institutions of appraisals, along with sharing of evaluative materials among institutions, to facilitate decision-making on hiring, or not hiring, medical staff wishing to move from one job to another.
6. Some advocate that appraisal forms/tools be organized into a common, national, digitized format, usable across multiple databases, for sharing (when legal to do so) and research purposes. ("Dr. Smith has applied for a position in our hospital. We would like to see his last five annual evaluations"). ("Research shows the following trends in the annual evaluations of first-year residents").
On how hard it can be to find the right way to evaluate doctor/medical staff performances:
https://www.physicianspractice.com/view/annual-performance-review-torment-all-partiesExample of a complex form (maybe too complex) that might be used :
https://monashdoctors.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/20201027_medical-performance-appraisal-tool.pdfExample of a simple form (maybe too simple) :
https://www.dexform.com/download/physician-performance-evaluationSo it seems that the way a doctor/nurse/pathologist/etc. is informed on how well he/she is doing, and how the person might do better, is not all that different from how that process might go for the rest of us.
Interesting.
(And to end on a humorous note, a little something I came across while working on this thread, a funny, satirical sketch on how NOT to do an annual job performance appraisal for someone) :
(Anyone ever have a job performance evaluation that went as badly as this one?)
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=doctor+job+performance+review+&mid=fb361780f4185f40690bfb361780f4185f40690b&form=vire