Psych PBDS

Started a new job in a psych hospital.

Took the PBDS. Pretty sure I did very well (although it was not administered very sensibly--three of us unsupervised in the room, one on her cell phone constantly, then a break for lunch and the ability to go back and change one's answers any time, plus no instruction to rank the responses from most to least important).

But they will not submit it for grading to the PBDS people because I already passed the med surg one three months before.

I can tell you, the two exams do not compare at all.

I did find that a new grad who had been hired three months before me was given the med surg PBDS by our (psych) hospital, then when she passed her boards she took the psych PBDS, and the facility not only had both her exams graded by the PBDS people, she is dubbed a "coach" for people who "fail" (I think the PC term is that they are judged to be "limited") and who will retake the exam.

Presumably the ones who "fail" will have their second PBDS exams scored by the real scorers, not the inidividual who administered ours. She has no training, but feels she can do just as good a job at evaluating the PBDS's.

Need I say more? (sheesh)

Thoughts? Ideas? Experiences? Suggestions?

What are PBDS's?

What are PBDS's?

Kris

Performance Based Development Systems.

It's a way of assessing someone's clinical ability using short (like, 15 to 20 seconds maybe a little longer) vignettes. They might give you some lab results, or some medications that the "patient' is "taking." If there is dialog, you get the transcript.

Then you are supposed to provide appropriate responses, or interventions, with rationales. When I took the med surg one, they said put the interventions in order of importance. When I did the psych one, well, let's just say the lady giving it is a couple of pickles short of a picnic, so I don't know if it was supposed to be in order of importance and she just forgot, or what.

People make a big deal out of it, but I thought it really wasn't too bad. I mean, it's a test. You pass it or you don't. When I got ready to take my med surg PBDS, I was interning on a telemetry floor and the supervisor said, "don't worry, everybody fails the first time." I wasn't as rattled about it as I might have been, given what he said, and I passed. And people say I don't have enough clinical experience (for a new grad? how much is that, anyway?), so maybe it isn't a good measure, since I passed.

But my clinical instructors said I was a natural, and I got all A's on my exams (second pass--first pass I had a solid B average), so who am I to say?

But that's what PBDS is.