Is Professionalism Teachable in Medical Education? A Literature Review

Over the last two decades, members of the medical education community have devoted a great deal of time and effort trying to ensure that medical professionalism is being inculcated in medical students and residents. There is a set of educational principles that apply to professionalism teaching during undergraduate and postgraduate education. This study aimed to investigate whether and how teaching medical professionalism is possible in medical education. This review study was conducted by searching through the databases of Medlib, Magiran, SID, ERIC, Scopus, Medline, and Web of Science for publications from 1995-2015, using the keywords professionalism, medical professionalism, medical education, medical ethics, and medical ethics curriculum. Out of 60 articles and 4 e-booksfound, a number of 28 articles and two books were selected for review. Review of the publications showed that professionalism in medical education is achieved in two explicit and implicit forms. The result will be a physicianas a “professional” with all of the necessary qualities Moving towards the teachings of situated learning theory shows that there should be a balance between explicit teaching of the cognitive basis of professionalism and providing opportunities for making learning happen in real-life settings. In doing so, the curriculum of medical education needs to be reformed.