Comparing Resident Evaluation of Attending Surgeons to Attendings Self-Evaluation

Introduction. Studying the educational situation of surgery residents according to the perspective of residents and attending surgeons could lead to recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of their education and also to evaluating faculty performance. The purpose of this study was to determine the residents' viewpoints on evaluating their attending surgeons and compare the obtained results with their own attendings' perspective in this regard. Methods. Seventeen surgical residents selected through census sampling method took part in this descriptive study by filling a valid and reliable questionnaire including 20 items, in which they evaluated all their 18 attending surgeons on doing their educational duties in the operating room, surgical ward, clinic and conference. The same written evaluation forms were distributed among the faculty members to examine their own performance in the units mentioned above. SPSS software was used for statistical analysis and, independent t-test and paired t-test for comparisons. Results. The mean scores that residents considered for attending surgeons in the operating room, other clinical settings and overall scores were 3.97 0.62, 3.86 0.57 and 3.91 0.58 out of 5, respectively. The mean scores for attendings' self-evaluation in this three sections were calculated 4.22 0.67, 4.05 0.85 and 4.14 0.67 out of 5, respectively. The attending surgeons who completed the self-evaluation forms received higher scores from residents but no significant difference was observed.. Conclusion. This study shows that attending surgeons should pay more attention to teaching the side effects of surgeries as well as providing appropriate feedback for residents and also to designing and supervising educational system. The results of these kinds of study can help attending surgeons to recognize the strength and weaknesses of their education. More studies are recommended to help for promoting the educational situation of surgery residents.