SGUSOM recognizes that regular, timely and formally documented assessment of faculty academic performance and progression towards promotion (where applicable) is desirable for maintenance of faculty quality, ongoing quality of student educational experience, and enhancement of faculty retention, in additional to being an accreditation standard requirement.
The SGUSOM policy on faculty appraisal has the establishment and regular review of SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely) goals as its base. Timely and structured feedback is provided to all full-time teaching faculty who significantly interact with medical students, by those who are best placed to assess their performance, namely the DMEs and clerkship directors and/or department chairs. The collaborative discussion and associated feedback is based on utilization of self-reflective evaluations, coupled with student assessment data. The process described in the policy enables comparative review of faculty and multi-level administrative oversight across courses, departments, clerkships, hospitals and geographic locations.
Faculty perform a yearly reflective self-evaluation using an online survey form, which is submitted for subsequent review to either their department chair, or to the DME and Clerkship director. For basic sciences faculty and smaller departments, this can be direct to the department chair, or can be delegated by the Chair to the relevant DME and clerkship director for larger clinical sites.
Focus topics within the reflective self-evaluation vary slightly between the basic sciences and clinical faculty, to reflect differences in content delivery and because basic sciences faculty receive a financial performance bonus. Focus topics for both self-evaluations enable identification of teaching contributions and standards met, establish and discuss short and long-term goals, explore faculty interest in promotion, and track progress towards meeting promotion standards with regard to professional development, publications, etc. In addition to the yearly summative evaluation (which is the basis for their financial performance bonus award), basic sciences faculty are required to attend an interim performance bonus evaluation with their chair. Clinical faculty who are interested in or who are working towards promotion, are encouraged to arrange an additional yearly meeting with their DME and clerkship director to specifically assess their progress towards meeting the necessary promotion standards for their track.
At the scheduled yearly summative evaluation, SOM faculty meet either face-to-face or virtually, with either the DME and clerkship director, or the department chair, to discuss their submitted reflective self-evaluation, along with the data compiled from student evaluations of their teaching (end of module, end of course or end of clerkship) and any other relevant faculty development data such as attendance at online workshops, completion of required training modules, completion of end of faculty development surveys, participation or attendance at medical education grand rounds, compliance with performance standards, etc. At the end of the in-person meeting, a summative evaluation is submitted using an online form by either the department chair or the DME and clerkship director, and a PDF copy is sent to the faculty member for their files. Any areas of concern or requirements for remediation are noted in this summative evaluation.
If the summative evaluation is submitted by the DME and clerkship director, then the summative evaluations for all faculty in a department across the various clinical sites is compiled administratively by the Office of the senior associate dean for clinical studies and sent to the relevant clinical department chair for review. The department chair reviews the summative evaluations and submits an executive appraisal report to the relevant senior associate dean of basic sciences or clinical studies. The executive appraisal report from the department chair identifies any sites and faculty requiring remediation. A remediation plan will be developed by the faculty member in collaboration with the DME and clerkship director and/or the department chair and filed with the Office of the relevant senior associate dean. The executive appraisal reports and any remediation plans are compiled by the respective Office (senior associate dean of basic sciences or for clinical studies respectively) and submitted to the Dean.
Depending on the reviews and discussion, a peer-review task force may be used to provide additional feedback. See Section D. 5.