JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Professionalism has come to be associated with competence in medical education, where the habitual and judicious use of communication, knowledge, technical skills, clinical reasoning, emotions, values, and reflection in daily practice for the benefit of the individual and community being served are part of the competencies.1(p.13) Recent studies indicate students should have the opportunity to observe knowledge and skills in these areas applied by their mentors to improve patients’ health and safety.2 However, perceived relevance of teaching professionalism to patient care’ is less related to context and the practical environment pressures in health systems. An especially noticeable detail that is missing from the literature is the inclusion of the student perspective. Therefore, this review will explore students understanding and experience of professionalism in UME.

Objective:

The objective of this review is to develop an integrated synthesis of qualitative and quantitative studies resulting in recommendations for curriculum incorporating the learner’s perspective in teaching professionalism in undergraduate medical education (UME) in medical schools.

Methods:

PubMed (Medline), Embase, Scopus, PsycInfo, and ERIC will be searched for studies published in English from 2010 to 2020. A convergent integrated approach to synthesis and integration will be used. Both quantitative and qualitative studies will be screened for inclusion and critically appraised for methodological quality. Both types of data will be extracted using customized tables for that focus on understandings and experience of learners related to professionalism. Data will be extracted from the included studies and where possible, quantitative data will be qualitized and research findings will be brought together and will be presented in narrative form.

Results:

The preliminary phase searches commenced in early 2021. Searches will commence towards the end of 2021. Screening Phase will commence in early 2022 with analysis of to be completed by June 2022. The anticipated completion date for the study is August 2022.

Conclusions:

This study is immersed in theory and will contribute to the body of literature from the student perspective of professionalism in medical curricula in medical schools. The outcomes of this research will provide insights from the learners perspective for the teaching of professionalism in medical education and health education policy.