PRIME+: An Assessment and Feedback Tool
Part of the role of educators is writing performance evaluations and giving feedback. PRIME+ provides a framework to help educators deliver narratives that more fully reflect observed performance and supports the telling of the “story” of the learner, provides context that helps students understand the feedback and gives reviewers the “big picture” of each student’s performance.
P (Professionalism): Reminds evaluators to incorporate comments about such traits as honesty, reliability, work ethic, timeliness, pursuit of excellence, commitment, responsibility, respectfulness, accountability and ability to be part of a team.
R (Reporter): Ability to gather information, report findings (written and oral), distinguish normal from abnormal, use proper terminology. Understands what is wrong.
I (Interpreter): Prioritizes problems and data, formulates differential diagnoses, supports or argues for recommendations. Understands why something is wrong.
M (Manager): Formulates a plan, manages all aspects of care, performs simple procedures, modifies the plan as needed, manages one’s own time. Understands how to address the problem.
E (Educator): Informs/communicates with others, self-educates, teaches patients and others, accepts and responds appropriately to feedback, accesses and interprets the medical literature, defines important questions.
+ (Plus): Things to improve upon or next steps for each category.
PRIME+ has been shown to:
- Correlate with clinical performance and identify at-risk students
- Mirror the developmental process
- Allow teachers to describe what they observe in an honest non-judgmental way
- Provide a context for feedback and helps others to understand a global picture of performance.
This framework can be used at the end of an encounter by preceptors, to follow a student’s progress over time, for strong statements for student performance evaluations and for letters of recommendation.
Holmes AV. Writing Medical Student and Resident Performance Evaluations: Beyond “Performed as Expected.” Pediatrics 2014;(133):766-768.
Pangaro L. A new vocabulary and other innovations for improving descriptive in-training evaluations. Academic Medicine 199: Nov;74(11):1203-7.
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