AMA launches new education initiative

The new multi-school plan's first goal is "figuring out what professionalism looks like."

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. Sept. 1, 2003.

Medical professionalism is being demanded by the public and state medical licensing boards, but opinions on what it is and how it should be taught vary widely.

With the launch of the AMA's Strategies for Teaching and Evaluating Professionalism (STEP) medical education initiative, efforts now are under way to refine the definition, to create "best practices" methods on how to teach it and then to measure how well those methods worked.

"Our first goal is to figure out what professionalism looks like," said Faith Lagay, PhD, director of the AMA Ethics Resource Center. "We want to describe it in real terms and not just say, 'Here are the elements.' "

To get the program going, the AMA contacted 125 medical schools in the United States and Canada. Of those, 111 responded and 42 (about one-third) applied to become partner institutions. Ten were chosen, and each will get $15,000 for participating in a two-year program in which faculty and residents will be trained to teach and serve as models of medical conduct.

Dr. Lagay said the first step would be to create a group consensus on what values, behaviors and attitudes constitute professionalism, then determine what courses and curriculum will help advance those values, behaviors and attitudes. The third step is to determine how to measure if the curriculum actually has worked.

According to at least one expert, the medical world will be watching to see how the program develops.