Case Study 3: Assessment of attitudes

Professional development in undergraduate medical curricula - the key to the door of a new culture?

“…Although this is somewhat reminiscent of a `nature vs. nurture' debate, there are now examples of schools with pre‐selection criteria 12 and early differentiation pathways 13 whose rationale is to match student attitudes to desired outcome. Other schools have adopted a more environmental response, introducing new professional development themes within their curricula, 14 explicitly exploring 15 and assessing attitudes, 16 and using learning methods such as peer review 17 that require exercise of professional skills in the process of knowledge gain 18 . Many schools have developed learning in medical ethics to explore issues such as informed consent or confidentiality, 19 and with a focus on the expectations of the professional regulatory bodies 20 .…”

Twelve tips for developing professional attitudes in training

“…OSCEs (objective structured clinical examinations), where students can be examined for appropriate responses to (simulated) patients, are now in common use. Portfolios are increasingly used as vehicles to link experience to learning via reflection, and clinical tutor assessments of real-life patient and staff relationships are now counted towards professional examinations (McCrorie & Cushing, 2000), so we can now begin to assess essential professional competences, such as the ability to: identify issues accurately (critical analysis); recognize key issues that are affecting decision making (insight); evaluate opposing arguments (proportionality); identify possible solutions and evaluate these (compromise and uncertainty); recognize the emotional impact on the people involved (empathy).…”