Explaining professionalism in medical students education (synthesis research)

This study has been done with a synthesis of both internal and external studies in order to achieve more and newer concepts regarding professionalism in medical education. The method of this study was synthesis research. The required data were collected by searching library resources and articles in ERIC, ProQuest, PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, springer Magiran, and Irandoc databases. In order to search domestic and foreign databases, the keywords of professionalism, curriculum, professionalism curriculum, medical education were used. The articles and sources reviewed were from 1998 to 2020. In the final review, the most relevant sources included 53 articles that were reviewed and extracted in order to achieve the purpose of the present study. 270 concepts were extracted and grouped into 22 concepts. Finally, the concepts were categorized into the final 6 concepts of professional commitment, caring behavior, virtue-based professional commitment, lifelong learner, ethics and law-based, professional character and type of curriculum. The results show that if certain professional beliefs and behaviors are not institutionalized in today's students during the internship, it can reduce the sensitivity of students' professionalism and thus make professional decisions difficult for future physicians. Therefore, the role of formal education in professionalism is important in this regard, considering the role of the hidden curriculum.