Educating for Professionalism: Creating a Culture of Humanism in Medical Education

Abstract

An inspirational work that will give medical educators many ideas and will stimulate some substantial changes in education about service and community activism. Joseph F. O'Donnell, senior advising dean and director of community programs, Dartmouth Medical School -The authors offer timely, reflective analyses of the work and opportunities facing medical education if doctors are to win back public trust. The thirteen essays in Educating for Professionalism examine the often conflicting ethical, social, emotional, and intellectual messages that medical institutions send to students about what it means to be a doctor. Because this disconnection between what medical educators profess and what students experience is partly to blame for the current crisis in medical professionalism, the authors offer timely, reflective analyses of the work and opportunities facing medical education if doctors are to win public trust. In their drive to improve medical professionalism within the world of academic medicine, editors Delese Wear and Janet Bickel have assembled thought-provoking essays that elucidate the many facets of teaching, valuing, and maintaining medical professionalism in the middle of the myriad challenges facing medicine at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The collection traces how the values of altruism and service can influence not only mission statements and admission policies but also the content of medical school ethics courses, student-led task forces, and mentoring programs, along with larger environmental issues in medical schools and the communities they serve. Copyright © 2000 by the University of Iowa Press All rights reserved.