How to Find Out Your Reporting Senior’s Fitrep Trait Average

Posted on September 20, 2016 Updated on October 8, 2016

One of the most important markers of a good fitrep is that your trait average is above your reporting senior’s trait average.  Since most officers initially write their own fitrep and create their own trait average on the first draft, it is important to find out your reporting senior’s trait average so that you can try to be above it.  Here are a few ways to find out what it is.

First, in order to have a trait average, your reporting senior has to have served as the reporting senior for officers of your same rank from any corps.  If they have not done this, they’ll have no pre-existing average.  For example, if you are a LCDR, your reporting senior does not have to have ranked LCDR physicians.  If he/she has ever ranked a LCDR of any kind (nurse, Medical Service Corps, line officer, etc.), then they will have an average.

If they have an average, here are the ways I know of to find it:

• If you’ve already received a fitrep from them in your current grade, then you can look at your Performance Summary Report or PSR, which you download from BUPERS On-Line.  The number in the lower right in the “AVERAGES” column (circled below) is their average for that rank.

• If you haven’t received a fitrep from them, maybe you have a friend in the same rank who has received a recent fitrep from them.  You can look at their PSR if they’ll let you.
• You can ask your chain of command or command fitrep coordinator.  They often know because they are trying to make sure that all of the fitreps being done don’t change the reporting senior’s average in ways he/she doesn’t want.
• You can ask the reporting senior.  They just may tell you.

The bottom line is that if you are drafting your fitrep, you want to try and find out the average and grade yourself above it.  In the end, the ranking process may move you below it, but by submitting the draft with an above average grade you may increase the chances you stay above it.

LCDR Fitreps – Language for Writing Your Block 41

Posted on August 30, 2016 Updated on February 1, 2025

LCDRs all over Navy Medicine are busily writing their fitreps, so I wanted to offer some assistance.  Keep in mind that when you write your block 41, the narrative portion of your fitrep, you are writing it for the promotion board.  Many LCDRs struggle to find the right words to express all the things they’ve done, but it shouldn’t be that hard.  If you read the fiscal year 2017 promotion board precept and convening order, you’ll find the things promotion boards are looking for explained in the language they want to hear.  To facilitate your quest for the perfect block 41, here is some assistance:

1. Here is the board precept: FY-17 AC RC PRECEPT
2. Here is the board convening order: FY-17 AO5S CONVENING ORDER
3. Here is a link to the video podcast that will help you write your entire fitrep: Basic Anatomy of a FITREP
4. Here is a cheat sheet to use when drafting your block 41 on Word: Block 41 Word Template
5. Here are all the relevant quotes pulled from these documents.  Take your accomplishments, read these quotes, and use this language to put your accomplishments into verbiage that will be easy to brief at your own O5 promotion board.  For example, maybe the opening line of your fitrep will borrow the first quote from the convening order below and read, “LCDR Smith is already performing his duties at the level of a seasoned Commander!”

From the precept:

“a broad spectrum of experience, background, perspective, innovative talent, and a depth and breadth of vision, drawn from every facet of the society it serves and understanding of the world within which it operates.  The Navy needs innovative and bold male and female leaders to lead, think creatively, challenge assumptions, and take well-calculated risks that maximize effectiveness.”

“rich diversity of experience, backgrounds, perspective, innovative talent, and depth and breadth of vision”

“demonstrated potential to lead large organizations in a complex world composed of men and women coming from widely varying backgrounds.”

From the convening order:

“capable of performing the duties of the next higher pay grade”

“leadership, professional skills, integrity, management acumen, grounding business practices, and resourcefulness in difficult and challenging assignments.”

“adaptability, intelligent risk-taking, critical thinking, innovation, adherence to Navy and DoD ethical standards, physical fitness, and loyalty to the Navy core values.”

“capable of leading personnel from widely varying backgrounds and mentoring a diverse workforce while executing the Navy’s strategic diversity initiatives.”

“Proven and sustained superior performance in command or other leadership positions in difficult or challenging assignments”

“successful performance and leadership in combat conditions”

“officers with relevant graduate education, experience in specialized areas, and Navy and Joint Professional Military Education (JPME).”

“completion of graduate education and development of a subspecialty.  Degrees from the Naval Postgraduate School, the Naval War College and equivalent Service institutions, and civilian education programs that result in assignment of a subspecialty code or award of Additional Qualification Designation (AQD) codes are desirable.  Proven expertise from an experience tour utilizing that subspecialty is fundamental to the development of Navy Leaders.”

“opportunities to broaden their cultural awareness through experiences and education and to enable better communication in a global operating environment.”

“innovation and efficiency to ensure that we retain an adaptive, flexible, and effective spectrum of conflict.”

“ability to successfully change and to manage for efficiency.”

“think creatively, develop new ideas, take prudent risks, and maximize capabilities through sound management practices.”

“demonstrating innovative thinking, efficient management skills, prudent risk taking, and effective business practices”

“ability to operate effectively with the other Services”

“leaders with knowledge and experience in a variety of settings including operational medicine, joint medical operations, and current peacetime health care delivery initiatives.”

“exceptionally high professional operational, clinical, and business competence and intellectual capacity who have the ability to think analytically and express themselves articulately.”

“energy to create and communicate the organization’s vision”

“build and motivate teams to accomplish that vision”

“calculated risk-takers, inclusive in decision-making, and trusted by subordinates.”

“courage to stand on principles and demonstrate a clear potential to lead the Navy of the future.”

“recognize talent, mentor, coach, and develop juniors, and build the environment in which they can thrive”

“understand and use the best clinical practices and business tools in managing our military population’s health.”

“clearly understand Navy Medicine’s obligation to support the fleet and Marine Corps and demonstrate the capacity to meet the challenges of our commitment to maritime superiority.”

“broad knowledge necessary to support the operating forces and are acknowledged leaders within their operational, clinical, scientific, and business specialties”

“demonstrated exceptional managerial skill and professional competence in executive and staff roles both in the support of the fleet and Marine Corps and within the naval shore establishment.”

“served in a broad spectrum of assignments requiring expertise in diverse functional areas.”

“broad military and medical perspectives beyond the Department of the Navy.”

“demonstrated superior performance in the clinical, scientific, and/or operational settings.”

Tips to Improve Your Concurrent FITREP

Posted on August 2, 2016 Updated on August 14, 2016

Yesterday an officer e-mailed me and asked for tips on improving his concurrent FITREP, which I thought would make a nice blog post.

A concurrent FITREP is most often received when you are deployed.  It is “concurrent” because not only are you getting a FITREP from your deployed command/unit, but you are also getting one from your home/parent command.  For example, I just returned from a deployment.  I was gone from September 2015 to June 2016.  I received both a periodic FITREP from my parent/home command and a concurrent FITREP from my deployed command.

Tips to improve your concurrent FITREP include:

1. Realize that operational commanders often know very little about medical/Navy FITREPs, so you want to do everything you can to make sure that none of these critical FITREP mistakes happen to you.
2. Try to get a strong soft breakout where the commander compares you to all officers of the same grade under his/her command either now or during his/her entire career.  For example, “In the top 10% of over 200 O4 officers I’ve rated in my entire career.”
3. Make sure your most important title/duty is in the box in the upper left of block 29.  For example, don’t put “PHYSICIAN” but “OIC” or “SMO”.  You can often score some titles that sound very important on a deployment, like “MEU SURGEON” or “GROUP SURGEON”.  You don’t want to waste them.

Otherwise, general FITREP advice can be found in the Basic Anatomy of a FITREP.