GoodFellow: An Electronic Portfolio System for Forensic Pathology Fellows

Abstract

The Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires documentation of the progress of residents and fellows in training, and the keeping of a portfolio is one method to comply with ACGME requirements. This article briefly describes Good-Fellow, an electronic portfolio database written in Microsoft Access ®. GoodFellow provides the fellow with electronic forms to track work hours, scene visits, court visits, court testimony, consults with families, police, and attorneys, and it also includes a place to document competence in required procedures (technical skills). Also included are forms to document experiences relevant to systems-based-practice, practice-based learning, required and optional reading, and evaluation of external rotations. If an office does not have an electronic database for tracking the fellow's case log and status of autopsy reports, GoodFellow offers those functions as well. In our office setting, a copy of GoodFellow is placed on an office network computer drive which is accessible by the fellow and the training program director and associate director. This allows the programs directors to continuously monitor the fellows progress, and data from GoodFellow are quite useful in preparing periodic status reports for, and required formal evaluations of the fellow. At year's end, a copy of GoodFellow can be placed in the fellows training file and a copy can be provided to the fellow as a keepsake and documentation of training.