Professional Attitudes of Third-Year Medical Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: Medical professionalism is one of the areas of competence in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. In this study, we aimed to determine the medical professionalism attitudes of third-year medical students and to investigate the effect of gender, reason for preference, and presence of a doctor in the family on these attitudes. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out with 331 third-graders who volunteered. Data was collected in 17.02.2020. As data collection tools, the Penn State School of Medicine (PSCOM) professionalism questionnaire-student form and a short sociodemographic information form were used. Data were analyzed using the SPSS 20.0 software (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) program. Results: The average age of stu dents was 21.45±2.00, and 168 (50.8%) of them were female. Average attitude scores are found as, for accountability 30.29 ± 4.19 (7-35), enrichment 24.88 ± 3.78 (6-30), equity 18.26 ± 2.12 (4-20), honor and integrity 36.37 ± 3.87 (8-40), altruism 13.11 ± 1.90 (3-15), duty 21.92 ± 2.80 (5-25), respect 9.05 ± 1.25 (2-10). Professional attitude scores of female students were higher than men's, students who chose the medical school for their ideal and to help people had significantly higher scores than students who preferred it for other reasons. No significant difference was found between attitude scores of students with and without the presence of a doctor in their family. Conclusion: Third-year medical students have a positive attitude towards professionalism. While gender and medical school preference were effective on these attitudes, the presence of doctors in the family was not found to be effective.