How would you define professionalism??

[ladybug70]

I have googled it and I still don't understand what it really means. I get how we can improve it in medicine, but what is it? Any help would be appreciated!

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[MonkeyNuts!]

It's been a while since I did my essays, which school is this? I want to say UMD, but that might be wrong.

I guess professionalism would be an attitude, way of carrying out your duties, or general mindset that accompanies a change of responsibilities in your chosen vocation to include other persons, whether employees you oversee or consumers that rely on your products/services. Keywords that are even more highlighted with professionalism would most likely be honesty, integrity, compassion, maturity, etc.

I pulled that all out of my butt in 30 sec. Lemme think about it for a while.

 

[tdd340]

If this is for UMD I went to a presentation about a month ago where the Dean of Admissions from UMD was a speaker and he was asked specifically about this question. He said that basically anything you put will work, a definition straight from the dictionary they have gotten and were fine. The point of the question for them is to make applicants think about proffesionalism and be aware of it because it has been declilning recently in their eyes and they are trying to reverse that trend.

 

[baylormed]

Doing your job well and promptly, being honest and ethical, always being on time, to respect your superiors as well as your (inferiors??), to present a good image.

That's the best I can come up with right now.

 

[DrMidlife]

See the New England Journal of Medicine November 16, 2006. "Professionalism - The Next Wave"

 

[ladybug70]

If this is for UMD I went to a presentation about a month ago where the Dean of Admissions from UMD was a speaker and he was asked specifically about this question. He said that basically anything you put will work, a definition straight from the dictionary they have gotten and were fine. The point of the question for them is to make applicants think about proffesionalism and be aware of it because it has been declilning recently in their eyes and they are trying to reverse that trend.

This is not a secondary question, I found it as a FAQ for interviews, but it stumped me, however, the input received has been quite helpful.

 

[Catalystik]

I have googled it and I still don't understand what it really means. I get how we can improve it in medicine, but what is it? Any help would be appreciated!

Professionalism, per the American College of Physicians acponline.org website:
Moreover, professionalism serves as the foundation for the social contract we maintain with the public. It is therefore essential in building and maintaining public trust.

Here is an overview of the core values as outlined by the Physician Charter:

Patient welfare. Fundamental to professionalism is the primacy of patient welfare. While physicians face a dysfunctional payment system, practice hassles, spiraling medical liability costs and increasing demands from society, reaffirming our commitment to high quality care is a prerequisite to solving many of the problems facing internal medicine today. If we are ever going to forge the political will to change our health care system, the public must trust the integrity of individual internists.

Patient autonomy. The charter identifies respect for patient autonomy as a second fundamental core value.

As reliable health care information becomes increasingly available to the public, we need to help patients make more informed decisions about their care. Internists also need to learn to work with a growing number of cultures, races and ethnicities, and to become familiar with the role culture plays in medical decision-making. We need to appreciate the impact of different beliefs, attitudes (of both providers and patients) and health care-seeking behaviors.

Internists also need to gain knowledge of other cultures, become adept at assessing our patients' cultural beliefs and learn how to empower patients from different backgrounds to make health care decisions.

Social justice. Promoting social justice and the fair distribution of health care resources is the final fundamental principle of professionalism outlined in the Physician Charter.

The first two principles, primacy of patient welfare and commitment to patient autonomy, focus largely on the interaction between physicians and patients. The third principle, however, focuses on medicine's social contract, stressing the responsibility of the medical profession to promote social and distributive justice.

 

[MirrorTodd]

What they said. I would have put a bunch of stuff but professionalism seems to be pretty well covered. It seems to me to be an abstract idea. You know it's there, but it's hard to grasp it in your hand. Sorry to much deep thought for me. I'm going to go grunt and scratch my back.