Dealing with borderline, failing and ‘cause for concern' trainees

This is one of the most important, difficult, and potentially unpleasant facets of assessing trainees. Partly because it is a comparatively unedifying part of working with trainees, problems sometimes arise. Sometimes, mentors are simply too kind and nice to be explicit with trainees about areas of concern and weakness – they might be OK telling subject tutors about worries in the course of a school visit, but are not always clear about concerns and reservations in writing, and can express these concerns to trainees in an oblique and understated way which means that the trainee has not grasped the scale of the concern. On first placement, mentors can try too hard to be positive, so that concerns do not always ‘show up' in the final summary report on first placement. This then means that if the concern emerges on second placement, the trainee can present it as a clash of personalities (‘There was no problem with this on first placement….'). Sometimes trainees claim that no one told them that there was cause for concern, or that they were in danger of failing to meet the Standards, or concerns arise so late in the course of the training year that there is very little written evidence to support the judgement to fail the trainee.

Activity 5.3.1: Dealing with borderline/failing trainees