Medical Professionalism

Introduction

This course provides online Public Health capacity building for health professionals. It provides a basic introduction to key aspects of the issues of medical professionalism. 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, 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.’

The course is designed to help you: 

1. Understand the broad concepts of Medical Professionalism
2. Apply the knowledge gained to your own practice

This course is an Open Online Course (OOC) and was prepared by Professors Kichu Nair, Tim Wilkinson, Dick Heller, and Drs Mohamed Haroon and Sergio Diez. It has been adopted from Peoples-uni and was further developed by NextGenU.org (NGU). It was sponsored in part by the Annenberg Physician Training Program (APTP).

There are five (5) modules to complete, which include:

Module 1: Introduction to Medical Professionalism and Definitions
Module 2: Altruism and Commitment to Patients’ Interests.
Module 3: Physician Self-Regulation and Maintenance of Competence
Module 4: Civic Engagement
Module 5: Relevance to Today/Tomorrow

Approximate time for completion of this course is 5 hours at an average reading rate of 144 words/minute.

Engaging with this course

• To register for this course, complete the registration form. Begin the course with Module 1. For each lesson, read the description. 
• Each lesson comprises introductory remarks. You can click on the collections of resources in each module. 
• There is a forum on each module for reflection, and you will be able to add a new topic or respond to a previous one. You may want to share your learning from this and other readings, comment on the topics from your own experience, comment on others' posts, or provide feedback on how we can improve the content and/or presentation.
• There is a final quiz to assess your understanding of some important concepts. Click on the hyperlinks to take you to these items in each topic.

Requirements to obtain the certificate 

You may browse this course for free to learn for your personal enrichment. There are no requirements.

To obtain a certificate, a learner must successfully complete:

• All reading requirements
• All discussion forums
• The final exam with a minimum of 70% and a maximum of 3 attempts and
• The self and course evaluation forms

Competence (Learning Outcome):

Be able to discuss differing definitions of medical professionalism and the scope of the subject.

"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 Module:

Be able to identify and apply the key ways in which commitment to patients' interests may be maintained.

The Module 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)

"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 Module will cover the following areas:

Commitment to autonomous maintenance and continuous improvement of competence (Self, including but not restricted to: reflectiveness, personal awareness, self-assessment, 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)

"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 tells 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 Module will cover:

• Improving access to care
• Just distribution of finite resources

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 Module will cover:

• The nature of modern professionalism
• Reforming accountability
• Implications of modern communication technology

Click here to start the Final Examination.

If you access the resources in each Module and pass the quiz below, you will earn a Certificate of Completion.