Teaching Professionalism in Personal and Professional Development: Views of Medical Students in Malaysia.

Professionalism is an important issue among the academics, practitioners and professional bodies. The study was conducted to quantify the extent to which professional attitudes would predict the personal and professional behaviors. A structured self-administered questionnaire related to students' experience of medical professionalism was distributed to medical students of the National Defence University of Malaysia. Data were analyzed descriptively. The preclinical students felt that screening of movie sessions (N = 69/80; 86.3%) and small group discussion sessions (n = 71/81; 87.7%) can help in developing professionalism. More than half (n = 43/77; 55.9%) agreed that someone can be a good physician even if someone is not a very good person. Most of the clinical students perceived that they encountered individuals who displayed and promoted professional behavior (n = 84/116; 72.4%) and other indications of positive role modeling in clinical settings. A majority of both pre-clinical and clinical students had positive perceptions regarding character-focused medical education. Bivariate analysis showed that 81.8% of clinical students appreciated the role of mentor-mentee sessions in developing professionalism compared to 64.2% of pre-clinical students. This difference was statistically significant (p = 0.004). The findings showed that character-based approach towards professionalism is an appropriate strategy. The lecturers should be encouraged to give some advices on personal attributes of professionalism during mentor-mentee sessions.