Professionalism: a student perspective.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Before commissioning as an officer in the U.S. military, the topic of professionalism had always seemed akin to modern art, easy to point out yet hard to describe. I had never really given it any significant thought beyond an unconscious attempt to portray it; whatever “it” was. The military has introduced me to the concept of explicitly training professional behaviors and helped me to define specific characteristics of professional behavior. What was once seemingly indefinable has become a conscious and practiced set of skills. At the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), professionalism is emphasized as a requirement for graduation in accordance with Liaison Committee on Medical Education 2014 Core Competencies. As a medical student surrounded by military custom day-in and dayout, my understanding of “military” professionalism had been established with training, and reinforced with daily practice. The concept of “medical” professionalism, however, was not as clear to me. Military professionalism appears black and white, with clear regulations about right and wrong. Medical professionalism, on the other hand, is more “gray,” with an unwritten scale of what appears to be acceptable professional behaviors. In medical school, we are explicitly evaluated on our fund of knowledge and medical communication with patients and staff. We are also evaluated on “professionalism,” however because of a lack of well-defined metrics, this is often subjective. Much research has been published attempting to define medical professionalism and how to measure it. One proposed measurement tool is the Professionalism Mini-Evaluation Exercise (P-MEX). The P-MEX has been shown to be a valid and accurate measurement of professional behaviors in medical students. This tool highlights 24 professional behaviors in four primary domains: