-The medical profession is under increasing scrutiny with regard to the undesirable attitudes and behaviours of some of its members. Despite the setting of objectives for professional attitudes, it remains unclear how these can be taught and assessed. Having defined 'attitudes' , we consider some of the influences upon the development of professional attitudes within medicine. We then review possible ways of encouraging desirable attitudes and behaviours. Finally, we review and critique the main types of attitude assessment. We conclude that attitudes are complex, that the influence of medical culture is crucial, and that feasible assessment tools have yet to be developed.
Key words: assessment, CPD, General MedicalCouncil, medical education, professional attitudes.The performance of doctors has come under increasing scrutiny in both the USA and the UK. This reflects the public's concern over what are perceived to be the inappropriate attitudes and behaviours of some members of the profession, together with an apparent lack of accountability. Sir Donald Irvine, President of the UK's General Medical Council (GMC), has called for a 'new professionalism' and has highlighted the fact that 'the public's unfulfilled expectations of doctors are crucially about attitudes' 1 . Similarly, in the USA, the definition of a profession (attributed to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandels) stresses altruistic attitudes: 'A profession … cherishes performance … above personal rewards' 2 .How can medical students and doctors be encouraged to develop desirable attitudes? In the UK, medical schools have been revising their curricula in response to the recommendations published by the GMC in Tomorrow's doctors 3 . For the first time, the GMC has presented UK medical schools with a list of 'attitudinal objectives' that students are expected to have acquired and demonstrated by the time they graduate (Table 1). At postgraduate level, the GMC has published Good medical practice 4 , which contains a list of 14 'duties of a doctor' which are similar to, but not exactly the same as, the undergraduate attitudinal objectives ( Table 2). The GMC's approach to attitudes is not new. It mirrors aspects of 'the ideal internist' , a concept first put forward by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) in the 1970s 5 . More recently, the importance of attitudes has been reiterated in the USA in the form of learning objectives for medical student education. These have been proposed both by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) 6 and by a collaboration of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM), the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine (CDIM) and the Division of Medicine at the US Department of Health and Human Services 7 . How are these objectives to be taught and assessed? At a conference organised by the GMC in 1997 it was acknowledged that 'the teaching and assessment of professional attitudes was proving to be the most difficult element of the new guidance' 8 , and the AAMC concluded that 'universally agre...