Medical Professionalism
Topic outline
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Welcome to this Open Online Course on Medical Professionalism. It is available for self enrollment and self paced study. It was prepared by Professors Kichu Nair, Tim Wilkinson, Dick Heller and Drs Mohamed Haroon and Sergio Diez. The concepts are general, and we hope that you will be able to apply them in your own context.
This course - originally developed as an Open Online Course (OOC) prepared by Peoples-uni, an educational initiative providing online Public Health capacity building for health professionals. The course provides basic introduction to key aspects of the issues of medical professionalism.
We hope that after going through this resource, you will:
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Understand the broad concepts of Medical Professionalism
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Apply the knowledge gained to your own practice
There are a range of definitions of Medical Professionalism, as will be discussed during the course, but one from the Australian Medical Association is:
"Medical professionalism embodies the values and skills that the profession and society expects of doctors. Through adherence to medical professionalism, doctors fulfil their duties to patients and the wider public."
This course explores various aspects of Medical Professionalism. There are 5 main Topics - each one includes the competences, or learning outcomes, you can derive from exploring the issues, a number of resources to read (click on the blue hyperlinks to take you to the resource directly), and a suggestion for how to reflect on the issues.
The course is built around the set of 10 professional responsibilities identified in 'Medical Professionalism in the new Millennium: A Physician Charter' by the American Board of Internal Medicine, and the Kings Fund report 'On being a doctor: Redefining medical professionalism for better patient care'., and the paper by Wilkinson, Wade and Knock A Blueprint to Assess Professionalism: Results of a Systematic Review.
A number of other resources are drawn from various credible sources - each one of them is freely available online as free or open source resources.
Ways to navigate the course: Click on the hyperlinks to take you to either a resource or to the reflection forum. You can post your reflection to the forum if you wish, and see the comments by others who have posted.
Note: you will earn a Certificate if you access the resources and post a reflection in each Topic and pass the quiz at the end!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. -
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Competence (learning outcome):
Be able to discuss differing definitions of medical professionalism and the scope of the subject.
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View Make forum posts: 1
Which components of Medical Professionalism do you think are important and why?
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"As changing market forces continue to confront the medical profession, physicians are increasingly challenged to maintain an unwavering commitment to their patients." [IMAP Agenda].
Competence (learning outcome) for this Topic:
Be able to identify and apply the key ways in which commitment to patients' interests may be maintained.
The Topic will cover the following areas:
Adherence to ethical principles (Honesty/ integrity, Confidentiality. Moral reasoning, respect privileges and code of conduct)
Effective interaction with patients and people important to those patients (Respect for diversity / uniqueness, Politeness / courtesy / patience, Empathy / caring / compassion / rapport, Manner / demeanor, Include patients in decision making, Maintain professional boundaries, Balance availability to others with care for oneself)
Effective interaction with other people working in the health system (Teamwork, Respect for diversity / uniqueness,Politeness / courtesy / patience, Manner / demeanor, Maintain professional boundaries, Balance availability to others with care for oneself)
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View Make forum posts: 1
Wlikinson and Wade et al state that “altruism,” rather than being inferred as meaning subjugating oneself for others, contrasts with maintaining a healthy work–life balance, so adopted the concept, “Balance availability to others with care for oneself.” Do you agree? If so, why?
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"The pace of innovation in medicine is unprecedented. Absent a commitment to life-long learning, the knowledge base of the best trained physician will soon be outmoded and fall short of best medical practice." [IMAP]
"Group pressures not to report a colleague or indifference to the performance of others might lead doctors to ignore a colleague's ineptitude or malfeasance, compromising patient health and safety." [IMAP]
Competence (learning outcome):
Be able to critically appraise the key methods of self-regulation by the medical profession and review the methods by which technical and communication competence can be maintained.
The Topic will cover the following ares:
Commitment to autonomous maintenance and continuous improvement of competence (Self. Including but not restricted to: Reflectiveness, personal awareness, and selfassessment, Seek and respond to feedback. Respond to error, Recognize limits, Lifelong learning, Deal with uncertainty; Others. Including but not restricted to: Provide feedback / teaching, People management, Leadership Systems. Including but not restricted to: Advocacy, Seek and respond to results of an audit, Advance knowledge)
Effective interaction with other people working in the health system Including(Teamwork, Respect for diversity / uniqueness,Politeness / courtesy / patience, Manner / demeanor, Maintain professional boundaries, Balance availability to others with care for oneself)
Reliability (Accountability / complete tasks, Punctuality, Take responsibility, Organized)
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View Make forum posts: 1
How do you plan to maintain your own professional competence? What would help you?
Assume that you see a colleague whose medical behaviour you suspect is unprofessional - should you intervene and if so how?
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"Physicians should enlarge the scope of their concerns from the well-being of the individual patient to a concern for the welfare of all patients. They must make their voices heard by communicating their knowledge to the public." [IMAP] To which we add: "Listening and responding to what the public tell us"
Competence (learning outcome):
Be able to discuss the ways in which concerns for the welfare of all in the community can be added to concerns for individual patient care.
The Topic will cover:
- Improving access to care
- Just distribution of finite resources
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View Make forum posts: 1
How can we resolve the tensions between concerns for the welfare of all in the community and concerns for individual patient care? Do you see tensions in resource allocation?
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How are medical practice and community expectations changing? Are we keeping pace with developments in communication technology?
Competence (learning outcome):
Be able to understand how doctors can keep pace with changes in practice and in the community around.
The Topic will cover:
- The nature of modern professionalism
- Reforming accountability
- Implications of modern communication technology
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View Make forum posts: 1
What would be your number one suggestion for ways in which doctors can keep pace with changes in practice and in the community around them?
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If you access the resources in each Topic and pass the quiz below, you will earn a Certificate of completion.
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View Receive a grade Receive a passing gradeOpened: Wednesday, 24 July 2019, 10:34 PM
Pass this quiz (7/10) to earn a certificate for the course
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