Dear Sir
This year saw the introduction of the situational judgement test, designed to assess candidates’ aptitude for employment and the professional attributes expected of a foundation doctor. These include:
Coping with pressure
Effective communication
Learning and professional development
Organisation and planning
Patient focus
Problem solving and decision making
Self-awareness and insight
Working effectively as part of a team (isfp.org; http://www.isfp.org.uk/SJT/Pages/default.aspx)
Interestingly, despite a desire to test our newly qualified doctors in this way, there is no current agreement to allow candidates to obtain feedback on their performance. So what does this mean from a practical perspective? Surely all candidates should be informed of their strengths and weaknesses, even those who score highly. When it comes to real life medicine, scores from a test only go so far in ensuring patient safety. Therefore in order to benefit in terms of learning, candidates should be allowed to receive appropriate written feedback on their performance. Unfortunately however an alternative viewpoint is held based primarily on the effort it may take to construct new and alternative themes:
Specific feedback about how you do on each item cannot be provided as this would require providing information about items which may be used again in future years. (http://www.foundationprogramme.nhs.uk/pages/home/how-to-apply/SJT-FAQs#answer382)
Declaration of interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest.