Journal
JOURNAL OF GENERAL INTERNAL MEDICINE
Volume 25, Issue 12, Pages 1330-1336Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11606-010-1485-8
Keywords
medical professionalism; medical education; qualitative research; students' reflections
Funding
- James Knott Family Trust
- University of Cambridge
- Macmillan Cancer Support
- General Practice and Primary Care Research Unit at the University of Cambridge
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BACKGROUND: New values and practices associated with medical professionalism have created an increased interest in the concept. In the United Kingdom, it is a current concern in medical education and in the development of doctor appraisal and revalidation. OBJECTIVE: To investigate how final year medical students experience and interpret new values of professionalism as they emerge in relation to confronting dying patients and as they potentially conflict with older values that emerge through hidden dimensions of the curriculum. METHODS: Qualitative study using interpretative discourse analysis of anonymized student reflective portfolios. One hundred twenty-three final year undergraduate medical students (64 male and 59 female) from the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine supplied 116 portfolios from general practice and 118 from hospital settings about patients receiving palliative or end of life care. RESULTS: Professional values were prevalent in all the portfolios. Students emphasised patient-centered. holistic care, synonymous with a more contemporary idea of professionalism, in conjunction with values associated with the 'old' model of professionalism that had not be directly taught to them. Integrating 'new' professional values was at times problematic. Three main areas of potential conflict were identified: ethical considerations, doctor-patient interaction and subjective boundaries. Students explicitly and implicitly discussed several tensions and described strategies to resolve them. CONCLUSIONS: The conflicts outlined arise from the mix of values associated with different models of professionalism. Analysis indicates that 'new' models are not simply replacing existing elements. Whilst this analysis is of accounts from students within one UK medical school, the experience of conflict between different notions of professionalism and the three broad domains in which this conflict arises are relevant in other areas of medicine and in different national contexts.
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