The Importance of an Accurate and Honest
Observership Program Evaluation
The program that your international medical graduate (IMG) observer has just completed will affect his/her career in many ways. Being able to function within the U.S. health care system and observing the delivery of care firsthand are invaluable experiences, but there are additional benefits tied to the quality of the evaluation you deliver.
A thoughtful and honest evaluation can provide valuable feedback to the observer with respect to how his or her performance has been perceived. This will allow the observer to work on any areas of weakness or deficiency in a focused manner. Ideally, the observer should have received a brief formative evaluation midway through the observership in order to address such issues before receiving this final summative evaluation. At that time, they also should have been given a copy of this evaluation form to understand how and in what areas they will be evaluated.
This evaluation can also provide program directors with critical information to help them narrow the large field of applicants they consider each year. For the Observership Program to have value and contribute meaningfully to the process of helping IMGs obtain positions in U.S. residency programs, however, evaluations must be accurate and not inflated. Therefore, it’s important to take a few moments after the weeks of hard work you and your assigned observer have completed, to provide an honest review that will serve these purposes.
The list of knowledge and skills to be evaluated may look overwhelming at first but by working through each one and using the examples of behavior, this evaluation should be completed in five to 10 minutes.
Thank you for taking the time to complete a fair and honest evaluation.
Completing the Observership Program evaluation form
1. Familiarize yourself with the descriptions of the Overall levels of performance (below):
2. When reviewing each item, first determine if it is relevant to the observer’s experience and/or if there was sufficient observation to evaluate. If not, check the “NA/NO” box (meaning “not applicable” or “not observed”) and move to the next item.
3. For each item that is determined applicable to your observer and for which there was adequate observation to evaluate, read the examples under the Needs improvement, Acceptable and Strong levels of performance. Determine which of those three levels best describes the IMG observer.
4. Within the level you’ve selected, check one of the three numbered boxes (the higher the number, the higher your evaluation). Check only one box for each area being evaluated.
5. Include written comments when possible, especially if the observer is rated very high or very low for an item.
6. Include any general comments or observations in the space provided at the end of the form.
7. You may choose to review the completed form with the IMG observer to provide more detailed feedback.
8. Return the form to Observership@aapiusa.org
Click here to download evaluation forms