Assessment of many
different aspects of work may be desirable such as decision-making,
teamwork and professionalism, but these are not amenable to
traditional methods of assessment. In this chapter, we will describe
assessment tools designed to facilitate the direct observation of
doctors performing functions in the workplace. These approaches
differ from those described in Chapter 11 in that they measure
doctor’s performance under observation. Deliberate observation
of a trainee or student using a rating tool represents an artificial
intervention and cannot be regarded as a measure of how a doctor
might act when unobserved. However, although representing a
compromise between tests of competence and performance, these
tests have been widely adopted as a practical means of evaluating
‘on-the-job’ performance