• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Association for Academic Surgery (AAS)

  • Home
  • About
    • AAS Staff
    • Contact Us
    • Foundation
  • Membership
    • Apply For Membership
    • New Member List
    • Membership Directory
    • Check Dues Balance / Pay Dues
  • Jobs
    • AAS Job Board
    • Post a Job
  • Resources
    • Assistant Professor Playbook
    • Partners
    • AAS Resources
    • Resident Research Funding Primer
  • Grants/Awards
    • AAS/AASF Fall Courses Award
    • AAS/AASF Research Awards
      • Basic Science/Translational Research Award
      • Clinical Outcomes/Health Services Research Award
      • Trainee Research Fellowship Award in Education
      • Global Surgery Research Fellowship Award
      • Joel J. Roslyn Faculty Research Award
    • Travel Awards
      • AAS/AASF Student Diversity Travel Award
      • Senior Medical Student Travel Award
      • Visiting Professorships
    • Awards FAQ’s
  • Meetings
    • Academic Surgical Congress
    • Surgical Investigators’ Course
    • AAS Fall Courses
    • International Courses
      • Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course and Scientific Writing Workshop
    • Resident Research Funding Primer
  • Publications
  • Webinars
    • Fireside Chat – Maintaining Balance & Control
    • Diversity, Inclusion & Equity Series
      • Allyship
      • PRIDE: The LGBTQ+ Community in Academic Surgery
      • Racial Discrimination in Academic Surgery
    • Academic Surgery in the Time of COVID-19 Series
      • How to Optimize your Research During the Pandemic
      • How to Optimize Educational Experiences During the Pandemic
      • Virtual Interviews
    • The Transition to Practice – Presented by Intuitive
  • Leadership
    • Current AAS Leadership
    • AAS Past Presidents
    • How to Chair
    • Committee Missions & Objectives
    • AAS Officer Descriptions
  • Blog
    • Submit a Post
  • Log In

December 14, 2016 by AAS Webmaster

How do we reward good doctors and teachers in academic surgery?

There are many objective means available to evaluate a faculty member. Estimating a faculty’s worth is important for job placement, compensation, and career development. One of the first things many do when “evaluating” someone is to perform a PubMed search, but even that gauge, limited to research, is fraught with challenges and controversies. Grant rewards and national presentations are also important markers of academic success. Quality metrics are gaining momentum and will be used more in the future. Conversely, measuring the quality of an academic surgeon’s performance of teaching and patient care is much harder. It seems that too often good surgeons become burned-out due to a lack of recognition and little appreciation for their teaching and clinical prowess. Conversely, some academic surgeons succeed with minimal teaching and mediocre clinical performance due to strengths in other areas or inaccurate assessment by their peers and division leaders. It is rare for partners to scrub cases or otherwise directly witness their colleagues in action. The resident and fellow perspective is unique, as we have the opportunity to evaluate our attendings in comparison to their partners and in “real life” technically and personally challenging situations. While most residency programs utilize a system for trainees to evaluate their attending surgeons, these evaluations are requested concurrently with so many other demands (and possibly fear of the consequences of delivering negative evaluations); therefore, the requests are overlooked or the evaluations are completed half-willingly. Additionally, these evaluations, intended to be used for rewarding good surgeons, appears to be a small part of a faculty member’s review process.

The trainee’s perspective is underappreciated and underutilized in evaluating an attending surgeon’s teaching and clinical skills. Most residents have been asked to recommend a physician who is an expert in a specific disease or operation, and have quickly surmised who they would prefer to care for a family member or friend (and who they would caution against). Likewise when discussing attendings, we as residents and fellows are quick to mention those who taught us the most and those we most enjoyed working alongside. There are many goals and metrics by which to measure attending faculty but at the center of any academic surgical practice is providing excellent patient care and training surgeons. Trainee opinion of their teachers is an underutilized and important mechanism to grade attending surgeons.

  • Bio
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Latest Posts

AAS Webmaster

Webmaster at Association for Academic Surgery
The Association for Academic Surgery was founded in 1967 and has grown significantly over the years being widely recognized as an inclusive surgical organization with over 2,500 member surgeons. Active members have traditionally held faculty appointments at a recognized academic center. Active membership is also available to senior/chief residents and fellows in approved training programs in general surgery and the surgical specialties. The impetus of the membership remains research-based academic surgery.

@AcademicSurgery

Latest posts by AAS Webmaster (see all)

  • Request for Self-Nominations for JSR Social Media Editor - November 13, 2020
  • 2020 Publications Committee Reviewers of the Year - October 26, 2020
  • AWS Research Methods Series: Workshop Two – November 14, 2020 | 3:00pm ET - October 23, 2020

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Print

Other Posts from The Academic Surgeon:

How do surgical trainees achieve autonomy while preserving patient safety? Issues with the current general surgery residency paradigm
ASE – Inaugural Podcast

Primary Sidebar

Log In

  • Lost your password?

AAS Commitment to Diversity in Academic Surgery

Save the Date: 2023 Academic Surgical Congress

Save the date for the 18th ASC!
February 7-9, 2023
Hilton Americas-Houston
Houston, TX
More information coming soon.  Learn more>>

2023 AAS Fall Courses

Save the Date! Saturday, October 21, 2023 Boston , MA Courses will take place immediately prior to the ACS Clinical … More Information » about Fall Courses

Footer

Association for Academic Surgery
11300 W. Olympic Blvd, Suite 600
Los Angeles, CA 90064
Phone: (310) 437-1606
Email: [email protected]

Follow Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

© 2023 · AAS - Association for Academic Surgery