Teaching on the run tips 8: assessment and appraisal.

Education Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, WA. Fiona R Lake, MD, FRACP, Associate Professor in Medicine and Medical Education. Department of Respiratory Medicine, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Nedlands, WA. Gerard Ryan, MB BS, FRACP, Respiratory Physician. Reprints will not be available from the authors. Correspondence: Associate Professor Fiona R Lake, Education Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Australia, First Floor N Block, QEII Medical Centre, Verdun Street, Nedlands, WA 6009. [email protected] The Medical Journal of Australia ISSN: 0025729X 6 June 2005 182 11 580-581 ©The Medical Journal of Australia 2005 www.mja.com.au Teaching on the run junior staff. Clinicians also have roles as teachers an mentors. As junior doctors both learn and are assess they require feedback about their progress in learn and about their strengths and weaknesses, so that how to improve. All these processes are integrally lin by the learning cycle (“Tips 1”). Poor understandin in assessing junior doctors’ performance may cause oc ati giv D tors find the terms “assessment”, “appraisal” and “evaluon” difficult and confusing. This is understandable en that there are no agreed definitions and the terms are commonly used interchangeably. As supervisors, we are asked to make judgements on the suitability of junior staff for medical registration, entry into vocational training programs or receiving the fellowship of a clinical college. In short, we are asked to assess d supervisors/ ed on the job, ing outcomes they can plan ked, as shown g of their role problems for some doctors. Furthermore, many of us have never been appraised or received feedback on how we are doing, yet we are expected to do it for our junior staff.