Abstract

Multisource feedback assessment of medical students' professionalism: who should be involved, when and how?

Author(s): Judy McKimm, Aidan Byrne, Huw Davies

Multi-source feedback (MSF) is increasingly used as a method of formative and summative assessment of medical students and practising doctors. It is supported by the UK General Medical Council (GMC) as an effective form of assessment of behaviours associated with professional practice. Traditionally, MSF of practising doctors involves feedback from peers, other colleagues and patients.MSF is only just being introduced into medical school curricula as a form of assessment and a number of challenges and constraints need to be considered in view of the potential burden on professionals and the specific behaviours that are being assessed. This paper reviews the findings from selected literature on MSF in the light of recent developments in assessing professional practice. It also reports on a pilot study carried out involving non-academic staff at one UK medical school that is in the process of developing a new graduate entry curriculum. This pilot describes a wider study which is exploring the feasibility of using multiple methods to assess medical students’ professional behaviours. In the pilot study non-academic staff were invited to provide feedback on the professional behaviours of graduate entry medical students using a novel method. They were asked to identify students from standard composite photographs of each year group whom they perceived had acted unprofessionally. The process was generally well accepted by both staff and students and proved simple to administer. Of 141 students, 11% were identified by at least one member of staff, but only 3% were identified by four or more. Using four identifications as the definition of ‘unprofessional’ resulted in this method having a positive predictive value of a single identification of 50% and a negative predictive value of 92%. This method appears to be efficient at identifying students whose general behaviour may be cause for concern, although further techniques are required to reliably assess student performance and provide them with adequate feedback.