Cultivating Professionalism in the Healthcare Professional

Objectives

• 1.

  Describe the key elements of professionalism necessary to succeed as a healthcare professional.

• 2.

  List factors that contribute to professional identity formation (PIF).

• 3.

  Identify the barriers which may impede professional identity formation (PIF).

• 4.

  Recognize the importance of effective teamwork and its role in professional identity formation (PIF).

• 5.

  Describe the challenges to effective and collaborative professional partnerships.

• 6.

  Employ tools and exercises to monitor and cultivate PIF progression.

What Is Professionalism?

What is professionalism as it applies to a healthcare professional, and how is it critical to patient care? Professionalism begins with the individual professional. In general, professionalism can be defined as the standard or code of conduct or ethics that characterize a profession and influence the practitioner's behavior. According to the World Health Organization Guidelines (WHO, 2019, p. 57), “Transforming and Scaling Up Health Professionals' Education and Training,” a healthcare professional can be described as any person who “maintains health in humans through the application of the principles and procedures of evidence-based medicine and caring.” Healthcare professionals include any professional who contributes to the health outcomes of the population they serve. No one professional can ultimately provide for the patient without the other members of the health care team, which includes physicians, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, medical laboratorians, to name just a few. Rogers and Ballantyne (2010, p. 250) described professionalism, as it relates to the healthcare professional, as a set of “attitudes [which] should lead to intentions to engage in appropriate professional behaviors.” That begs the question, what are the desired behaviors, and how do attitudes influence those behaviors? In Rogers and Ballantyne's analysis to find a practical definition for professional conduct, they proposed five behavioral domains that should be considered the center of professional practice.

• •

  Responsibility

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  Honesty

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  Self-awareness and reflective capacity

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  Collaboration with colleagues

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  Relationships with and respect for the patient

But are these taught or traits we need to ensure each health care professional possesses? As we expand our understanding of professionalism, let us review the challenges medical educators experience in developing professionalism curricula and assessing professionalism in their student populations.