I have two questions about this article’s differential attainment in postgraduate medical education.1 One is the pluralism of evaluation; the other is the fairness of evaluation.
Regarding the pluralism of evaluation, the way mentioned in the article to evaluate achievement is examination. Is this theoretical or practical examination? In addition to theory and practice, should students’ achievements include psychological quality, humanistic quality, scientific research, papers, medical ethics, ordinary achievements, and some other things? I think a good doctor should not only get good grades, but also have many excellent characteristics. We know that the purpose of the exam is not for the exam itself, the score itself, and some achievements cannot be measured by the score. Examinations can be used to find deficiencies. For teaching institutions, it is necessary to find ways to improve the quality of training.
As for the fairness of evaluation, how can we guarantee the fairness of students trained and evaluated by different teaching methods? Although there is no evidence that these differences are related to prejudice, will the unfair distribution of the original educational resources lead to bias in evaluation methods, and will the current achievement evaluation system be more conducive to some people, thereby widening the existing gap?
- © British Journal of General Practice 2019
