Student Professionalism

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provoke thought in the pharmacy academy about the critical and comprehensive need to address professionalism. Several forces are driving the need for this conversation: the movement toward pharmaceutical care as the practice standard requires a higher level of professionalism from practitioners; critical issues with regard to current practice that address patient safety, workload, and shortages in our profession; and the sentiment that there has been a decline in the professionalism of our students over the last several years as well as within society in general. This paper will comprehensively review the concept of professionalism, its value to pharmacy practice, challenges to its development, factors necessary to support it, and recommendations to foster it in the academy and in practice. We hope this paper serves as a call to action for administrators, faculty, practitioners, and students to think and discuss critically professionalism in pharmacy education, as well as to stimulate additional work in this important area.

Reasons of Absenteeism among Undergraduate Medical Students: A Review

“…Students who miss a lot of classes perform poorly on exams because they were not present when the topics were covered, alternatively students with high levels of absenteeism less committed to academics in general. 15 Lecture and tutorials provide a platform where students interact with the teachers, observe them and distinguish them as role models. Low attendance hence may affect this process and hinder their professional growth.…”

The Influence of Faculty Mentors on Junior Pharmacy Faculty Members’ Career Decisions

“…For pharmacy students, student development and nurturing could be considered an aspect of professional development. 12 Mentoring is an abstract construct and can be conceptualized in multiple ways. We chose not to define mentoring in the current study, but instead focused on the influence and the encouragement of faculty members-2 key aspects of a mentor/protégé relationship.…”

Cross-Validation of an Instrument for Measuring Professionalism Behaviors

“…2 Professionalism also can be defined as a "set of core values that includes altruism/ service, caring, honor, integrity, duty and others." 3 While these definitions provide practitioners and educators a sense of the fundamental nature of professionalism, they are not methods for measuring professionalism in our students or practicing pharmacists.…”

“…Attitudinal measures of professionalism may not address outward behaviors, and behavioral measures may not address internally held values related to professionalism. 3 While there are many publications on professionalism in pharmacy, relatively few papers report on the formal curriculum associated with teaching professionalism or assessing students' acquisition of professionalism. 7 Only 3 articles report on the development of tools to measure professionalism in pharmacy students.…”