Medical humanities and promoting professionalism (vitally important; challenge is succeeding with continuously decreasing funding)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24072126

Acad Med. 2013 Sep 25. [Epub ahead of print]

The Challenge of Promoting Professionalism Through Medical Ethics and Humanities Education.

Doukas DJ, McCullough LB, Wear S, Lehmann LS, Nixon LL, Carrese JA, Shapiro JF, Green MJ, Kirch DG; for the Project to Rebalance and Integrate Medical Education (PRIME) Investigators.

Source

Dr. Doukas is William Ray Moore Endowed Chair of Family Medicine and Medical Humanism and director, Division of Medical Humanism and Ethics, Department of Family and Geriatric Medicine, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. McCullough is Dalton Tomlin Chair in Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. Dr. Wear is codirector, Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Healthcare, and associate professor, Departments of Medicine, Gynecology-Obstetrics, and Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York. Dr. Lehmann is associate professor, Harvard Medical School, and director, Center for Bioethics, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Nixon is professor, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida. Dr. Carrese is director, Program on Ethics in Clinical Practice, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, and associate professor, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Shapiro is director, Program in Medical Arts and Humanities, and professor of family medicine, University of California-Irvine School of Medicine, Irvine, California. Dr. Green is professor, Departments of Humanities and Medicine, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania. Dr. Kirch is president and CEO, Association of American Medical Colleges, Washington, DC.

Abstract

Given recent emphasis on professionalism training in medical schools by accrediting organizations, medical ethics and humanities educators need to develop a comprehensive understanding of this emphasis. To achieve this, the Project to Rebalance and Integrate Medical Education (PRIME) II Workshop (May 2011) enlisted representatives of the three major accreditation organizations to join with a national expert panel of medical educators in ethics, history, literature, and the visual arts. PRIME II faculty engaged in a dialogue on the future of professionalism in medical education. The authors present three overarching themes that resulted from the PRIME II discussions: transformation, question everything, and unity of vision and purpose.The first theme highlights that education toward professionalism requires transformational change, whereby medical ethics and humanities educators would make explicit the centrality of professionalism to the formation of physicians. The second theme emphasizes that the flourishing of professionalism must be based on first addressing the dysfunctional aspects of the current system of health care delivery and financing that undermine the goals of medical education. The third theme focuses on how ethics and humanities educators must have unity of vision and purpose in order to collaborate and identify how their disciplines advance professionalism. These themes should help shape discussions of the future of medicalethics and humanities teaching.The authors argue that improvement of the ethics and humanities-based knowledge, skills, and conduct that fosters professionalism should enhance patient care and be evaluated for its distinctive contributions to educational processes aimed at producing this outcome.