Facilitating the initiation of the physician’s professional identity: Cornell’s urban semester program

Abstract

Calling for major reform in medical education, the Carnegie Institute report ‘Educating Physicians’ espoused the importance of assisting student trainees in forming their professional identities. Here, we consider the question: At what educational stage should future physicians begin this process? The literature suggests that the process begins when students matriculate in medical school; we posit, however, that premedical students can begin their proto-professional development as college undergraduates. We describe here the pedagogy of Cornell University’s urban semester program (USP), which enables college students to participate in shadowing experiences as part of an integrated structured study programme. USP students report improved communicative competency, changes in their perceptions and attitudes toward medical practice, and powerful influences on their personal and professional development upon completion of the programme. We suggest the solution to the question of ‘When and under what conditions should shadowing take place?’ is to utilize a structure that combines the exposure of college students to the professional environment with a didactic and self-reflective curriculum, thereby supporting students in their early professional development. We conclude that educational efforts aimed at developing professional identity and behaviour can begin before students enter medical school.

MPRO: A Professionalism Curriculum to Enhance the Professional Identity Formation of University Premedical Students

“…Following a review of the literature, we identified 8 model programs supporting university premedical students pursuing a career in medicine ( Table 1 ). [ 24–31 ] Though each of these programs aims to provide an opportunity for students to gain clinical exposure through physician shadowing, few integrate opportunities for reflection into the observership experience. For example, of these 8 programs, we found that only the Cornell University urban semester program, the Health Frontiers in Tijuana Undergraduate Internship Program at the University of California, San Diego, and the Stanford Immersion in Medicine Series incorporate opportunities for structured reflection.…”

“…Following a review of the literature, we identified 8 model programs supporting university premedical students pursuing a career in medicine (Table 1). [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] Though each of these programs aims to provide an opportunity for students to gain clinical exposure through physician shadowing, few integrate opportunities for reflection into the observership experience. For example, of these 8 [32].…”

Peer-to-peer shadowing as a technique for the development of nurse middle managers clinical leadership

“…Shadowing is used successfully in teaching nurses (Paskiewicz, 2002; Seldomridge, 2004; Porter et al ., 2009) and medical students (Spencer, 2003; Stalmeijer et al ., 2009; Jain et al ., 2012; Goldstein et al ., 2014, Micallef and Straw, 2014). Some authors name shadowing, among other methods, both as an instrument for training NMMs (Watkins et al ., 2014; Edmonstone, 2013; Edmonstone, 2011a; Skytt et al ., 2011) and as a technique for clinical leadership development (Enterkin et al ., 2013; Edmonstone, 2011b; Crethar et al , 2011).…”

Professional Identity of Chinese Medical Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…It is an important part of nurturing professionalism within medical students [5,6] and is related to how strongly individuals identify with their chosen professions. Some scholars also pay attention to the formation and factors that in uence medical students' professional identity [7][8][9][10]. For physicians-in-training, preliminary data suggest that good virtues in medical practice are associated with having a strong sense of professional identity [11].…”