Doctors in acute and longitudinal care specialties emphasise different professional attributes: implications for training programmes.
OBJECTIVE
Organised medicine mandates that professionalism be taught during specialty training. This study's primary objective was to determine the relative importance that doctors in different specialties place on different attributes of a medical professional.


METHODS
Attending staff and resident doctors in acute care (anaesthesia, emergency medicine, surgery) and longitudinal care (internal medicine, psychiatry) specialties at a large academic hospital completed an anonymous, web-based survey. The forced-choice format required respondents to narrow down 25 professional attributes to three. The main outcome measure was the number of doctors in the two specialty groups who chose one or more attributes in each of six underlying categories.


RESULTS
Almost two-thirds of respondents in both groups chose Moral and Ethical attributes. Significantly more longitudinal than acute care doctors chose Relationships with Patients attributes (76% versus 58%) and Communication Skills attributes (28% versus 18%), whereas significantly more acute care doctors chose Clinical Competence attributes (44% versus 29%). Specialty group was more important in choice of professional attributes than gender or position as a resident or attending staff doctor.


CONCLUSIONS
Most respondents chose attributes that the literature and organised medicine define as core elements of medical professionalism. The differences between specialty groups suggest that attributes in the Relationships with Patients and Communication Skills categories be emphasised for trainees in acute care specialties, and attributes in the Clinical Competence category be emphasised for trainees in longitudinal care specialties.
Garfield
Joseph M
JM
Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative & Pain Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. garfield@zeus.bwh.harvard.edu
Garfield
Frances B
FB
Hevelone
Nathanael D
ND
Bhattacharyya
Neil
N
Dedrick
Daniel F
DF
Ashley
Stanley W
SW
Nadel
Eric S
ES
Katz
Joel T
JT
Kim
Christine
C
Mitani
Aya A
AA
D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards*; D003142:Communication; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D005791:Patient Care; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000592:standards