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Reaffirming Professionalism through the Education Community
- P. Preston Reynolds, MD, PhD
- From the University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Requests for Reprints: P. Preston Reynolds, MD, PhD, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Clinical Scholars Program, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 3615 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-2676. Acknowledgments: The author thanks Drs. Amy Justice, Eugene Hildreth, Jordan Cohen, and Charles Bosk for their suggestions, and Drs. David Kountz, Brad Moore, and William Greer for the invitations to teach components of the curriculum on medical professionalism.
Abstract
Objective: To determine the role of the clinical training environment and a medical education community in reaffirming medical professionalism among physicians-in-training and faculty.
Data sources: Published articles on undergraduate and graduate medical education and sociology works on professionalism were identified through research.
Study selection: Studies were selected that illustrated barriers to professionalism in medical education and patient care and the professional conduct of medical students, residents, and faculty.
Results: Factors that undermined the medical education community were the specialization of medicine, the faculty reward systems, and the service demands of residency because of the economics of health care.
Conclusions: Establishment of a firm system with a core teaching faculty, creation of mentoring and role modeling programs, implementation of a longitudinal curriculum on medical professionalism, evaluation of physicians on professional conduct, and evaluation of the clinical training environment are suggested as strategies to re-establish an education community and reaffirm professionalism in medicine.
- Copyright ©2004 by the American College of Physicians
