Residents as Professionalism Teachers and Assessors; A Pilot Study on Implementing a Faculty Development Program Leading to Curriculum Development

Abstract

Background: Several threats to professional values that were previously undisputable are faced now by medical professionals. In response, medical professionals and the concerned societies decided to stand against this dilemma and come up with proper solutions beginning with the recognition of the substantiated need for reinforcing professionalism evaluation in graduates of medical specialties. Hence, professionalism has been clearly named as a core competence by most of the accreditation councils for medical graduates and practitioners. Ideally, professionalism should be taught explicitly as a cognitive base, followed by intended role modeling and reflective practice with feedback that takes place in clinical encounters by trained faculty. Then, it should be assessed thoroughly with structured standardized rating scales or by more than one statistically sound assessment method. Since one third of information acquired by medical students is attributed to residents and interns, this training program proposed residents to be a part of professionalism teaching and assessment. Further, a targeted needs assessment obtained through a small group discussion with multiple interviews revealed that residents are dissatisfied with their ability to judge numerous professional dilemmas that they frequently encounter.