Speaking the same language: Cross-sectional assessment of perceived contributors to professionalism across generations

What we think about professional and unprofessional behaviors: differences between the perception of clinical faculty members and medical students

INTRODUCTION

Differences in the viewpoints of clinical faculty members and medical students about prioritizing professional norms accepted by the professional community and lack of alignment of these views can lead to distortion of understanding, problems in learning and assessment of professionalism, and failure in students' professional identity formation. This study aimed to identify the differences in viewpoints of clinical faculty members and medical students about prioritizing the importance and prevalence of professional and unprofessional behaviors among undergraduate medical students.

METHODS

A multi-stage qualitative study was conducted at Tehran University of Medical Sciences during 2020-2021. At first, a systematic search was conducted to identify professional and unprofessional behaviors using the directional content analysis method. A panel of experts was formed to check the codes obtained from reviewing the literature and to evaluate its compliance with the context. Then, the modified nominal group technique sessions were held with clinical faculty members and medical students to strengthen the codes extracted from the studies and systematically integrate their views to achieve a comprehensive list of professional and unprofessional behaviors in accordance with the context. Finally, a consensus was made among them about prioritizing the importance and prevalence of these behaviors in undergraduate medical students.

RESULTS

A total of 490 codes of professional behaviors and 595 unprofessional behavior codes were identified in the literature review. In the following sessions of the modified nominal group, 13 clinical faculty members listed 105 codes of professional and unprofessional behaviors, and 51 medical students also listed 313 codes. The results of the modified nominal group technique showed that the faculty members reported the importance of unprofessional behaviors higher than professional ones. At the same time, students rated the importance of professional behaviors higher than unprofessional ones. Both faculty members and students rate the prevalence of professional behaviors as high and the prevalence of unprofessional behaviors as low.

CONCLUSION

The results showed a difference of views between clinical faculty members and medical students about prioritizing professional and unprofessional behaviors. It is essential to align their viewpoints to understand, learn and value professionalism to develop a professional identity.

Developing an Instrument to Evaluate Undergraduate Healthcare Students' Professionalism

Professionalism is a multidimensional quality acquired over time. Undergraduate years lay a foundation for the development of professionalism. Tools monitoring the students' professional development are needed. Our tool development followed three phases: 1) identifying meaningful criteria for professionalism adapted to the education level, 2) developing an evaluation instrument in a process maximising construct validity, 3) testing the evaluation instrument in an interprofessional study. The evaluation instrument proved to be applicable in the field and it meets validity standards. Some differences between professions were found and discussed. Professionality starts to develop during the education, and early monitoring is important to support students' optimal development. The evaluation instrument supports both self- and expert evaluation of healthcare students' professional development.

Assessing Professionalism in Medicine - A Scoping Review of Assessment Tools from 1990 to 2018

BACKGROUND

Medical professionalism enhances doctor-patient relationships and advances patient-centric care. However, despite its pivotal role, the concept of medical professionalism remains diversely understood, taught and thus poorly assessed with Singapore lacking a linguistically sensitive, context specific and culturally appropriate assessment tool. A scoping review of assessments of professionalism in medicine was thus carried out to better guide its understanding.

METHODS

Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) approach to scoping reviews was used to identify appropriate publications featured in four databases published between 1 January 1990 and 31 December 2018. Seven members of the research team employed thematic analysis to evaluate the selected articles.

RESULTS

3799 abstracts were identified, 138 full-text articles reviewed and 74 studies included. The two themes identified were the context-specific nature of assessments and competency-based stages in medical professionalism.

CONCLUSIONS

Prevailing assessments of professionalism in medicine must contend with differences in setting, context and levels of professional development as these explicate variances found in existing assessment criteria and approaches. However, acknowledging the significance of context-specific competency-based stages in medical professionalism will allow the forwarding of guiding principles to aid the design of a culturally-sensitive and practical approach to assessing professionalism.

Academic dishonesty among academics in Malaysia: a comparison between healthcare and non-healthcare academics

BACKGROUND

This study was carried out to gauge the prevalence of academic dishonesty among academics in Malaysian universities. A direct comparison was made between academics of healthcare and non-healthcare courses to note the difference in the level of academic integrity between the two groups. In addition, the predisposing factors and implications of academic dishonesty, as well as the different measures perceived to be effective at curbing this problem were also investigated.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study design with mixed qualitative and quantitative approaches was employed and data collection was carried out primarily using self-administered questionnaire.

RESULTS

Approximately half (52.5%, n = 74) of all respondents (n = 141) reported having personally encountered at least one case of academic dishonesty involving their peers. The results also revealed the significantly higher prevalence of various forms of academic misconduct among healthcare academics compared to their non-healthcare counterparts. Although respondents were generally conscious of the negative implications associated with academic dishonesty, more than half of all cases of misconduct were not reported due to the indifferent attitude among academics. Low levels of self-discipline and integrity were found to be the major factors leading to academic misdeeds and respondents opined that university managements should be more proactive in addressing this issue.

CONCLUSIONS

The outcome of this study should serve as a clarion call for all relevant stakeholders to start making immediate amends in order to improve the current state of affairs in academia.