Scoping Review of frequently highlighted attributes of Medical Professionalism in an Undergraduate Medical Education Context

Background and Objectives: Medical Professionalism (MP) establishes the trust between society and doctors. We aimed at finding frequently highlighted qualities of MP in the literature. Methods: We searched PubMed and Scopus for attributes of MP, using terms, Professionalism, Medical Students, and Undergraduate Medical Education. We included English language, original research articles with MP attributes from the perspective of undergraduate medical education, any nationality, race, gender, and age range, as the central topic of the article. Papers published from January 1st 1986 to 29th February 2020 were included. Results: From 1349 identified articles, finally, 18 were included, authored in 10 countries, collectively contributing to answering the scoping review question. Two themes were identified: (1) Nurturing of MP, 11 (61.11%) out of 18 included articles, highlighted respect as the most dominant attribute as it appeared in 6 (54.55%) out of 11 reviews, communication 5 (45.45 %) studies and honesty and integrity 4 (36.36%). (2) Assessment of MP, 7 (38.89%) studies, and majority, 4 (57.14 %) assessed MP using American Board of Internal Medicine's elements of MP, viz, altruism, accountability, excellence, duty, honor and integrity, respect for others. Conclusions: Themes exemplified MP's most discoursed issues. The attributes are frequently used worldwide. MP deliberates as a commitment toward the individual patient, society, and necessitates transforming from its present generic form to more explicit details.

Automated summary

This study aimed to identify frequently highlighted qualities of Medical Professionalism (MP) in the literature and found two main themes: Nurturing of MP and Assessment of MP. Respect was identified as the most dominant attribute in articles about MP, while assessment of MP predominantly used elements from the American Board of Internal Medicine.