Clinical tutor evaluation: a 5-year study by students on an in-patient service and residents in an ambulatory care clinic.

Medical students on an in-patient service and residents working in an ambulatory care clinic have regularly evaluated their clinical tutors over the 5 years 1985-1989. Both groups of raters reliably and predictably evaluated their tutors and both emphasize between-tutor comparisons more than actual rating values for individual tutors. Tutors active in both contexts regularly receive higher ratings from the medical students than from the residents. Mid-course feedback to tutors in the medical course had no impact on end-of-course ratings. In neither context did tutor ratings improve from one evaluation to the next. Both groups reliably discriminate between the teaching skills and the personality traits of individual tutors.