Preliminary Grade Form – How To Complete (Patient Care)
Grading is the part we all find most challenging – after all, we want to be teachers, not graders.
The e-value system that UWSOM uses is not so user friendly, and there are changes every year to try to “improve” (i.e., “make less bad”). Here’s a step-by-step that I hope will help:
Note: any time below that I say “leave it blank” and the system seems to insist that you write something, feel free to put in “XX” or some asterisks or “I have no idea” and we will fill it in.
Credits: This is “12” for a 6-week clerkship. 2 credits per full time week. Feel free to leave it blank we can fill it in.
Clerkship director/faculty: Feel free to put in your name here.
Student number: That’s the UWSOM student ID. If you don’t have it leave it blank – we have them all.
Final grade: This is the clinical grade that you feel the student deserves, based on your review of the clinical performance. It should align with the numerical clinical grade that you have calculated by whatever method you think is appropriate. Every site is different so I don’t choose to mandate a specific method or equation to calculate the numerical clinical grade. According to the grading rubric:
- <2.0 is Fail
- 2.0-2.74 is Pass
- 2.75-3.49 is High Pass
- >=3.5 is Honors
- Note:
If you choose a “word grade” that doesn’t seem to align with the Likert scores and the comments, I usually contact you for a conversation so I can understand. Then we have a chance to iron out any confusion
Any of the changes/adjustments based on the final written exam score are unknown to you so you don’t have to worry about it – I like each site to concentrate on what the student really does as they perform in the clinical realm and to assign the most accurate grade based on that performance. If the student really does great on the final exam, awesome! If the student really struggles on the final exam, that is unfortunate. None of those things should change what you saw, and therefore what you say, in the evaluation.
We ask that you not use the “No Grade Now” – that is saved for special circumstances like in-completes, etc. You and I would be talking before we every marked that one.
12 domains marked as Likert scores: Each one of these has some verbiage that is supposed to make it clear what we mean by levels of performance for “Knowledge of Subject”, “Data-Gathering Skills” etc. Mark for each or “N/A” if it’s something the student really doesn’t do (most often, for peds, that would be “Procedural Skills” but some sites let students to LPs or circumcisions).
Bioethical Component and Mini-CEX: You can just type in “complete” here instead of providing details, if that is easier for you. We have the tracking system that the student also completes. If a student has not done these things even though they are asked, we have a different issue and probably we will be talking.
Final Examination Grade: that happens after the clerkship is done, so leave it blank – we fill it in.
Overall Assessment: Almost everyone is “Meets or Exceeds Expectations”. If we click “Needs Development” or “Unacceptable”, we have to explain it in the box that comes next, and we need to chat. If the student is “Meets or Exceeds Expectations” you can leave the free-text box blank.
Concerns about Clinical Performance or Concerns about Professional Behavior/Conduct: Again, if marking “Yes”, it needs explanation and we will chat. If “No”, then definitely leave these boxes blank (in fact, typing into the boxes even the words “No concerns” flags the system that there is a problem, so better to leave blank).
Areas of strength/areas for work-growth: here, we ask for 2-4 bullet-point-type comments. If there was a problem that didn’t really rise to the level of the “Concerns” boxes above, you can put it in here using some constructive feedback wording.
Summary of overall performance (the “MSPE” Box): Here, we type in the overall commentary, trying to touch on all the Competencies. The Dean’s office has said this must be <300 words – not so easy! This paragraph gets dropped into the MSPE (the “dean’s letter”) when the student applies for residency, so this one is important.