Peer Review

Ugh. I remember peer to peer reviews, and sometimes they stung a little even if you were a decent nurse with good people skills. Of course, you don't know which of your co-workers was asked to provide information, so you kind of go around for a bit wondering who said what. And then it would be your turn to do a review, and you had to come up with something you believed your colleague needed to work on. Like the OP, I didn't watch my co-workers, hoping to find a negative I could report---I had enough to do with my own job---so I usually wrote something positive, or if I couldn't do that, something noncommittal, like "Susan is quiet and doesn't seem to ask for help often." She may not have needed help, which was why I left it at that. But write a bad review, even of a co-worker I didn't like? Nope.

I would be inclined to go to the individual and ask them for their input on what they need to improve upon but then they would know that I was the peer reviewing them!

I hate doing peer reviews.

The positive stuff was easy to address. If they had any blatantly negative habits or deficits, as in stuff I had witnessed that could have caused patient harm, I would be obligated to mention it.

But most of the time, if I had to write about something negative, I'd try to put the best spin possible on it. Not saying that I would lie, but perhaps tie the negative in with something positive to show that I believed the person had the potential for growth/improvement/addressing the issue.