Shiraz medical students' perceptions of their colleagues' professional behavior.
BACKGROUND
Today, development of professionalism is a critical aim of medical schools. Studies have demonstrated that medical students' perceived level of professionalism is inadequate worldwide. This study aimed to investigate the medical students' perceptions of their colleagues' professional behavior.


METHODS
This study is a cross-sectional study with 280 medical students at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in their fifth to seventh year of study as the sample. The study was performed during one month in 2013, using stratified random sampling method. The instrument of the study was the Persian version of the questionnaire of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM).The questionnaire includes demographic information, questions about the meaning of the professionalism, history of medical ethics education programs and 12 behavioral questions. The data were analyzed using student t-test and Pearson correlation test. The significance level was set as 0.05.


RESULTS
Forty percent of respondents did not know the meaning of professionalism. The mean±SD score of behavioral questions was 5.91±1.2 on a scale from 0 to 10. The mean±SD score of excellence questions was 4.94±1.7. It was 7.05±1.9 for 'honor/integrity', and 6.07±2.1 for 'altruism/respect' questions. There was a significant association between gender and excellence score (p=0.007).


CONCLUSIONS
Medical students assessed their colleagues' professional behavior as poor. They did not have proper information about professionalism. Medical students are future general practitioners and respecting medical ethics by them is very important in a perfect health system. Universities should emphasize the importance of teaching professionalism to medical students and faculty members, using innovative education methods.
Department of Community Medicine, Medicinal and Natural Products Chemistry Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran;
Mehrdad
M
Askarian
Student Research Committee, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran;
Mohammad Javad
MJ
Ebrahimi Nia
Department of Community Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran;
Fatemeh
F
Sadeghipur
Medical Informatics Research Center, Institute for Futures studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran;
Mina
M
Danaei
Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
Mohsen
M
Momeni
Excellence; Medical students; Professionalism; Respect