Development and initial validation of a program director’s evaluation form for medical school graduates

Background: In the early 1990s, our group of interdepartmental academicians at the Uniformed Services University (USU) developed a PGY-1 (postgraduate year 1) program director evaluation form. Recently, we have revised it to better align with the core competencies established by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. We also included items that reflected USU’s military-unique context. Purpose: To collect feasibility, reliability, and validity evidence for our revised survey. Method: We collected PGY-1 data from program directors (PD) who oversee the training of military medical trainees. The cohort of the present study consisted of USU students graduating in 2010 and 2011. We performed exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to examine the factorial validity of the survey scores and subjected each of the factors identified in the EFA to an internal consistency reliability analysis. We then performed correlation analysis to examine the relationship between PD ratings and students’ medical school grade point averages (GPAs) and performance on U.S. Medical Licensing Examinations Step assessments. Results: Five factors emerged from the EFA–—Medical Expertise, Military-unique Practice, Professionalism, System-based Practice, and Communication and Interpersonal Skills.” The evaluation form also showed good reliability and feasibility. All five factors were more strongly associated with students’ GPA in the initial clerkship year than the first 2 years. Further, these factors showed stronger correlations with students’ performance on Step 3 than other Step Examinations. Conclusions: The revised PD evaluation form seemed to be a valid and reliable tool to gauge medical graduates’ first-year internship performance.