Training Post Evaluation

Providing a solution for honest, confidential feedback on training

The Training Post Evaluation was launched by RCPI in 2016 in order to give doctors in Basic and Higher Specialist Training the opportunity to provide honest and anonymous feedback on their training experiences.

The answers that Trainees provide when they complete the Evaluation help us identify the strengths and weaknesses of specific posts or training sites. They provide the information to allow us to work with hospital sites and trainers to improve the quality of training.

A report summarising findings from the first three years of the Training Post Evaluation was published in October 2019. The report is based on feedback from doctors in Basic and Higher Specialist Training programmes in 86 training sites across Ireland.

The findings point to a number of areas of good practice but also illustrate areas where training standards are unsatisfactory and require significant improvement.

Other national and international reports, including Your Training Counts from the Medical Council, have identified similar training challenges and issues.

These issues emphasise the essential need for training bodies, the hospital sites, and the HSE to work together to optimize training and the training environment.

We recognise that every training site needs to be able to facilitate training in an organised, productive manner in a good learning environment. Ensuring that this is the case is central to the improvement of medical training in Ireland.

Professor Anthony O’Regan
Dean, Institute of Medicine, RCPI

What is asked in the evaluation?

In the evaluation, Trainees are asked to evaluate each training post they completed in that academic year (July – July).

The evaluation has questions about their interaction with trainers, their satisfaction with the training provided, on-site facilities and the working environment.

The evaluation was developed by National Specialty Directors and the Trainee Committee with support from the RCPI Research Department and senior management.

Why it matters

Honest feedback from Trainees is enormously important. It allows us to review and improve our training programmes.

Although Trainees already provide feedback on training at annual assessments, because these assessments are not anonymous, they may be reluctant to discuss areas of concern or negative experiences.

We developed the Training Post Evaluation to give Trainees the opportunity to provide anonymous feedback.

Trainees are not asked for their name, date of birth or RCPI ID number. To further protect their anonymity, we will not analyse data at training site/post level until two years of data have been collected. This will minimise the potential that individual Trainees can be identified.

Dr Orla Woods

Postdoctoral Researcher

Tel: +353 1 863 9608

Orla joined the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in November 2018 as a Postdoctoral Researcher. Orla previously worked in the pharmaceutical industry in the areas of pharmacovigilance, regulatory affairs and developing training content (clinical trials). She completed her PhD and BA (Mod. Neuroscience) in Trinity College Dublin