Can professional values be taught? A look at residency training

Although medicine has long valued and reinforced certain behaviors, collect ively labeled "professionalism," among its members, it is not clear if or h ow these behaviors might be conveyed to physicians in training, Despite thi s, teachers are required to assess and at times to act on their perceptions of their charges' professionalism. Surgery residents at a large metropolit an hospital were tracked during a 50-month period. They were evaluated on o bjective criteria, such as clinical abilities and performance, and more sub jective qualities, including ethical standards and interpersonal skills (pr ofessionalism). Analysis of the data indicated that residents who scored ab ove the mean on professionalism also scored significantly higher than their classmates on every dimension of skills and knowledge performance evaluate d, This convergence suggests that those qualities comprising professionalis m are important elements in resident's training, and tend to produce better overall clinical performance. This finding, and previous research in this area, should encourage investigators to explore the relationship between pr ofessionalism and clinical competence.