Surgical Resident Peer Evaluations–What Have We Learned

PurposeResidents spend most of their time in the hospital with their respective junior and senior colleagues. Therefore, residents have a unique and valuable insight into their peers’ professional qualities. Peer evaluation of values and virtues of each group may bring a different or an even better aspect of evaluating some ACGME core competencies. The purpose of this study was to identify the characteristics of junior and senior residents who are perceived to be role models in contrast to those who are not and to determine among these characteristics which is the most influential factor(s).MethodsSeventeen senior residents (4th and 5th) and 26 junior residents (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) evaluated each other in an anonymous manner 6 months apart on 3 separate occasions. Questionnaires for each group were designed by their evaluating group. Each questionnaire listed the qualities of a role-model resident anchored on a scale of 1-3.ResultsA 1-way analysis of variance indicated that most of the time, the senior residents are perceived to be role models (the mean role-model rating = 2.87). A partial eta-squared analysis was performed to determine how well the specific performance factors differentiate the cases in which senior residents were perceived to be role models and when they were not. Clearly, professionalism along with attitude/expectations was the most differentiating factor.Similar statistical analyses were performed on seniors evaluating juniors. The role-model mean ratings were different significantly from one another (p = 0.014), which indicated that the senior residents varied significantly in the degree to which juniors were perceived to be role models.ConclusionIn each group, both junior and senior residents value professionalism as the most important differentiating attribute of a role model. Seniors felt that knowledge was a less important attribute of a junior role model. Juniors felt teaching inside and outside of the operating room was a less important attribute of a senior role model.