Increasingly specialty boards are exploring ways to include patient evaluations of physicians in physician certification. The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) is one such group who designed an evaluation form for patient to use to provide feedback on a physician’s professionalism and communication skills. We have adapted this form for your use. It is a scantron form with a cover letter explaining to the patient what it is. There are ten Likert questions and three demographic questions and a space for comments. These packets are available in the Clerkship Director’s office across from Kathy’s desk on the wall.
You can ask as many patients (or their family members if appropriate) to evaluate you using this form as you would like. We provide an envelope with our address that you can use so the survey can remain anonymous. The more patients you are able to have evaluate you, the more meaningful the data. For this limited clerkship, an ideal number would be 8-10. Some students have expressed concern that patients might think they were being nice to them only because they were getting evaluated. This may be true of some patients, but it is very common practice for hospitals and clinics to distribute patient satisfaction forms so most patients will view this as a routine occurrence.
Logistically, there is no easy way to do this other than hand them out yourself or you can ask another team member to do so if that is more comfortable for you. The envelopes go through campus mail fairly reliably from Shands but not the VA or Jacksonville. You will need to collect the sealed envelopes and return them to Kathy to ensure they are received from these locations (and it is really more reliable at Shands too). We scan these at the end of the rotation but there is no formal deadline.
Evaluation criteria: The only documentation for the portfolio is one sentence saying that you turned in patient evaluations. We will provide you with your numeric rating and any comments when you receive your final clerkship evaluation and grade.
