Description

This session equips clinical preceptors with practical tools to evaluate medical learners accurately, fairly, and in alignment with competency-based medical education standards. Participants will explore strategies for direct observation, behavior-anchored rating scales, avoiding common evaluation errors, and writing high-quality narrative comments. The session also covers documenting concerns and supporting struggling learners to ensure evaluations that are both educationally meaningful and professionally defensible.

Learning Objectives

1. Differentiate between formative feedback and summative evaluation.
2. Describe core competency domains relevant to clinical preceptors and identify observable behaviors that align with developmental milestones.
3. Identify evidence-informed strategies, such as direct observation, behavior anchoring, and entrustment language, to produce accurate and fair assessments.
4. Explain the importance of clear, behavior-based narrative comments that both reflect competency expectations and offer actionable next steps for learner growth.

Moderator

Nehad El-Sawi, PhD
Assistant Vice President for Academic Innovation and Enhancement, Office of Academic Affairs, Des Moines University Medicine and Health Sciences

Speaker

Gary Beck Dallaghan, PhD
Assistant Dean for Accreditation, Carle Illinois College of Medicine

Dr. Beck Dallaghan is the assistant dean for accreditation at Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He heads the college's accreditation and educational quality improvement initiatives. Dr. Beck Dallaghan has nearly three decades of experience in medical education. For over 20 years, he was at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, completing a master's in mathematics and a doctorate in educational psychology. He served as their assistant dean for medical education for five years. In 2018, he joined the University of North Carolina School of Medicine as director of educational scholarship. After a brief time from 2022 to 2024 at a new medical school, Dr. Beck Dallaghan excitedly explores accreditation and educational quality improvement by applying interpretive policy analysis. Nationally, he is actively involved in several medical education organizations, including nearly 30 years with the Alliance for Clinical Education and as the current president of the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics. 

Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Recording date: April 1, 2026
Date of original release: April 1, 2026
Most recent review/update: April, 2026
Termination date: March 31, 2029