BMJ  2004;329:171 (17 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7458.171-a

Letter

Review of instruments for peer assessment of physicians

... and our impact on one another is important

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Evans et al reviewed instruments for peer assessment of physicians.¹ Decades of experience helping healthcare professionals learn how to seek, give, receive, and process feedback has led to several conclusions.² Rigorous psychometric techniques have little place when what is being explored is the impact human beings have on one another when they interact face to face.

The primary form of validity that really matters is face validity, specifically because the judgments are subjective—the "subjects" are human beings. This same fact explains the "poor agreement between observers of the same event" when "humanistic qualities" are of concern. The "observer," after all, is not the person experiencing the event. Furthermore, even when a person exhibits the same behaviour towards two separate people, he or she can, and, as our own research documents, often does, experience the behaviour differently. As well they should, for they, too, are different human beings.

Perhaps . . . [Full text of this article]

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Review of instruments for peer assessment of physicians

Richard Evans, Glyn Elwyn, and Adrian Edwards
BMJ 2004 328: 1240. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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