Developing a Curriculum Pattern of Professionalism for Medical Sciences Students

Professional ethics in the medical sciences is an intellectual field of study that requires educating the medical team about the thoughts, ideas, and behaviors of ethical principles and values that are carefully evaluated until these principles and skills are institutionalized. In so doing, this study endeavored to develop a professional ethics curriculum template for medical students.

This study was conducted using a combination method in the academic year 2020 in two phases like this qualitative (model design) and quantitative (model accreditation). Qualitative data analysis was performed by interviewing 17 members of experts in the field of education, research, treatment, and ethics in medical sciences and accreditation by 10 members of curriculum specialists and Medical ethics of different universities by using Delphi method who were selected by purposive sampling method through Brown and Clark analytical method using Atlas TI.

After summarizing the concepts and categories in the form of curriculum components (i.e., objectives, educational content, implementation or educational strategies and evaluation), a total of 150 conceptual propositions, one major category with four subcategories along with a sub-category, final analysis, and report a model of professionalism curriculum was presented for medical sciences students. Finally, the validation of the developed model was done by curriculum and medical ethics experts using Delphi method.

The results revealed that the development of uniform and codified professional ethics training programs from upstream sources seems to be essential. It is also necessary to explain the educational content of practical and applicable professional ethics, training and continuous evaluation of the principles of professional ethics in all courses and disciplines to institutionalize the principles of professional ethics in three areas of education, research, and treatment.