Measuring Medical Professionalism

Patients who are confident of physicians' intellectual and technical abilities are sometimes not convinced of their professional behavior. Systemic and anecdotal cases of physician misconduct, conflict of interest, and self-interest abound. Many have even come to mistrust physicians as patient advocates. How can patients trust the intellectual and technical aspects of medical care, but not the professional? In order to enhance and promote professionalism in medicine, one should expect it, encourage it, and evaluate it. By measuring their own professional behavior, physicians can provide the kind of transparency with which they can regain the trust of patients and society.
Not only patients, but also institutions which accredit organizations have demanded accountability of physicians in their professional behavior. While there has been much lament and a few strong proposals for improving professionalism, no single reliable and valid measure of the success of these proposals exists. This book is a theory-to-practice text focused on ways to evaluate professional behavior written by leaders in the field of medical education and assessment.

David Thomas Stern is at University of Michigan.