This part of the appraisal form is for providing details of Significant events that you have been named or involved in, and any learning from those events and actions taken to address failures in care.
The form looks like –
The value in providing this information is not to admit guilt, but to highlight learning from any adverse incidents, and show that you have reflected appropriately.
The appraisal form will have a box for writing a summary of events and another box for any learning or reflection on the event.
Not writing anything perhaps demonstrates a reluctance to admit that things have gone wrong and closed learning behaviour. Most doctors will experience an adverse event during their career.
Most critical reflective techniques involve using a 3 stage process to analyse and write about the event –
1. The what?
A description of the incident/experience with just enough detail to support doing your “So what?” section next. For example, description about what happened, why, when, where.
2. So what?
This is the sense-making section that asks you to look at general issues surrounding the event, any significance of the events to you or the team, your view point; your actions; your feelings (pre – during – after the event).
3. Now what?
This makes connections from the experience / incident to further actions and learning. For example, what would you do differently / the same next time? How come? What are key points, lessons learnt to share with your colleagues, team, mentor? (eg. idea, skills, process, concept)? How will you do this?
This will be discussed further in the Complaints section next.
You can reflect or put down learning from events that you have been involved in or even just investigated.