Laying the Foundation of Medical Professionalism among Pre-clinical Students: Importance of Reflection

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. Introduction: The escalating problem of unprofessionalism calls for 'teaching' medical professionalism in a more explicit manner. Early clinical exposure (ECE) presents the issues pertaining to medical professionalism to the students and reflection note writing evokes critical process of thought and analysis required for learning. The two, therefore, may be used for teaching medical professionalism. Methods: Two hundred students of Ist MBBS were taken for ECE to a medical intensive care unit (ICU). There, the students observed different ongoing activities and critical patients, a doctor discussed some cases with them and they also interacted with the relatives of patients admitted in the ICU. Thereafter, students wrote a 'reflection' note describing what did you see? so what? and now what? Students were given an Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE), one before the ECE and one after it, for assessing any change in their professional behaviour.Analysis of reflection notes was done thematically and of OSCE scores using paired t-test (p<0.05). Results: The analysis of reflection notes revealed the budding of different elements of professionalism among the students. Post-visit OSCE scores also showed significant improvement. Conclusion: Incorporation of reflection with ECE is helpful in laying the foundation of medical professionalism among pre-clinical students.