It's That Time of Year Again (And This Year, I Have Backup)

Every spring, my calendar fills with a particular kind of dread: the yearly evaluation. I've written about this before, how it can feel like just another box to check, another administrative chore wedged between night shifts and grant deadlines. But I've been thinking about it differently lately, partly because I've gotten better at preparation. And partly because this year, I'm bringing AI to the table.

Let me walk you through how I approach my own yearly evaluation (and where the AI tricks come in).

Start with your promotion criteria. Yes, even if you're nowhere near the finish line.

Pull up your institution's faculty handbook, find your track, and actually read the criteria. I know, I know. But here's what changes when you do: you stop seeing your work as a list of things you did and start seeing it as a portfolio you're building. Did a fellow you trained go on to implement your lecture curriculum at their new institution? That's dissemination of educational innovation beyond your institution. Call it that. Out loud. In writing. This is not the time for humility.

Once you've generously catalogued what you're already doing, look at your promotion criteria and see what's left you could do to get promoted. Now, ask yourself, “Which of these would I actually like to do?” Want to write a textbook? Great! Write it down. Now it's a goal, not a daydream.

Go backward through your calendar to find everything you’ve done in the past year.

You're not going to remember everything. No one does. The way I do this: I block two hours on an afternoon (mornings are for thinking; afternoons are for data entry) and I go through my calendar month by month. I pull lectures, committee meetings, consults I did, panels I sat on. Chronicle all of it in whatever document your institution requires (ours uses RedCap). This is the unglamorous part of academic medicine, but it's also oddly satisfying. There are also moments of joyful reflection, like when I find a meet-up with a friend I’d forgotten about but had an amazing time at. 

While you're in that mode: update your CV. Fix the fonts. Fix the punctuation. If your CV has been living in a Google Doc with three different font sizes and a mysteriously bold sentence from 2019, this is the moment to get it sorted. In another window, pull up your educator portfolio and update it, too. Tedious? Yes. Mindlessly productive? YES.

Here's where I bring in the AI.

Once your CV is updated, this is one of the best uses of a tool like Claude that I've found in academic medicine. Upload your CV and try a prompt like:

"I'd like some help planning my next 2–3 years toward the goal of being promoted to full professor in the next 5 years. Taking the information in my CV, and considering promotion criteria to professor at peer institutions that you're able to find online, please suggest activities I should be focusing on for the next 2 years." If you have your promotion criteria in a PDF, you can upload that at the same time and make the output specific to your institution.  

What comes back is usually a surprisingly nuanced read of where your portfolio has gaps, like publishing but not presenting? Teaching but not publishing about your teaching? Getting institutional recognition but not national visibility? AI can cross-reference your current trajectory with what peer institutions actually weigh, and give you a concrete list of what to build toward.

You can get even more specific: ask it to prioritize based on what's achievable over the next 12 months, given your current clinical load, or to flag which criteria are typically dealbreakers versus nice-to-haves. 

Write your self-assessment like you're making a case, not confessing to a judge.

Your self-assessment is an argument. Lead with what you accomplished, anchor it to your promotion criteria, and quantify wherever you can: number of trainees taught, programs developed, patients cared for. Connect what you did this year to the goals you named last year. And if your goals shifted mid-year because of something unexpected (a global pandemic, a leadership change, a personal crisis), say so. Context is not an excuse; it's information.

Some things worth including that people often forget: letters from trainees, program evaluations, and thank-you notes from families. These aren't soft add-ons. They're evidence in the case you’re building, the case that you are maximizing the resources you’ve been given (so imagine what you could do with more!). You’re blazing a trail not only at your institution, but also across the wide world of academic medicine.

Think ahead to your letter writers, set yourself (and them) up for future success.

You may not need letters for this evaluation, but you will eventually. Start the list now. Then spend some time to send a genuine "thinking of you" email to someone on that list: ask what they're working on, see where your interests overlap, and where you may be able to collaborate. (When you’re sussing out collaboration opportunities, be ready with an offer that makes it easy for them to say “yes.” It goes something like this: "I'm working on [X]. I think your expertise in [Y] would be invaluable, particularly for [specific piece]. I'm planning to do [specific heavy lifting]. I'd love 20 minutes to see if this is something you'd be interested in, and to talk about whether authorship would make sense for you.") These relationships are the long game of an academic career, and they're worth tending outside of crisis mode.

Walk into the room with a plan.

Your yearly evaluation is not a performance review at a corporation. It's a protected hour with your division director to talk about your career and strategize next steps. Come with a self-assessment you're proud of. Come with a goal you're excited about. Come with a question you can't answer alone.

And this year, come with a little AI-assisted clarity about where you're headed.

You've done more than you think. Now let's make sure the right people know it.