Using Narratives to Evaluate Psychiatry Residents’ Competence

Abstract

The authors propose a new way to assess the clinical competence of psychiatric residents. Faculty eualuators would be trained by using narrative descriptions of appropriate and inappropriate practice in various clinical settings. The training has the potential to provide more realistic data about the clinical abilities of residents than current methods.

On the use of narratives in nursing research

“…Narratives can also be a means of achieving shared decision‐making between caregiver and relatives in ethically problematic situations (Karlawish 1996), as well as a means of creating a sense of mutuality in the caring relationship and integration between caregiver and patient (Hirst & McKiel 1997). Narrative descriptions may also be used for evaluation and quality follow‐up (Shanfield et al . 1997).…”