{"id":2418,"date":"2024-03-19T06:00:07","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T07:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=2418"},"modified":"2024-03-19T11:36:30","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T11:36:30","slug":"the-unbearable-vagueness-of-medical-professionalism-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=2418","title":{"rendered":"The Unbearable Vagueness of Medical \u2018Professionalism\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Since its inception, this murky term has straddled the dual role of disciplining and inspiring.<\/p>\n

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When Joel Bervell thought about professionalism as an undergrad, he thought of \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy.\u201d Specifically, he thought about how residents on the show were expected to be, although often were not: on time, prepared for their cases and respectful to everyone around them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the only standard that I had of what it meant to be a doctor \u2014 especially someone like me, who doesn\u2019t come from a family of doctors,\u201d said Mr. Bervell, <\/strong>28,<\/strong> a fourth-year medical student at Washington State University. Mr. Bervell, who is Ghanian American, is one of the first Black medical students at the medical college, which opened in 2017.<\/p>\n

From the moment students set foot in medical school, they are instilled with the concept of medical professionalism: their sacred responsibility to conduct themselves with the values of a profession that is granted automatic trust in society. \u201cIt is the first thing they tell you: You are now literally a medical professional,\u201d Mr. Bervell said.<\/p>\n

The same metric can be used to determine whether or not a med student becomes a doctor at all.<\/p>\n

Starting in their third year, Mr. Bervell learned, he and his classmates would be regularly assessed on their professional behavior<\/a>, along with other attributes like communication skills. Faculty, staff and other students could also report specific concerns about an individual\u2019s professionalism, resulting in write-ups the contents of which could become attached to their permanent records, following them like scarlet letters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The problem, as many medical students have also learned, is that where \u201cprofessional\u201d is vague, \u201cunprofessional\u201d is even more so. Depending on who makes the call, unprofessional behavior can mean hugging<\/a> your program director, letting a bra strap show<\/a>, wearing braids<\/a>, donning a swimsuit<\/a> over the weekend or wearing a \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d<\/a> sweatshirt<\/a> in the E.R.<\/p>\n

As a result, professionalism exists at two levels, as both a lofty standard of behavior and a (sometimes literal)<\/a> list of dos and don\u2019ts that blur ethics and appearance. That second meaning can prove particularly pernicious to residents of color, said Dr. Adaira Landry, an adviser at Harvard Medical School and co-author on a recent journal article<\/a> on the \u201coverpolicing\u201d of Black residents.<\/p>\n

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Since its inception, this murky term has straddled the dual role of disciplining and inspiring.When Joel Bervell thought about professionalism as an undergrad, he thought of \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy.\u201d Specifically, he thought about how residents on the show were expected to be, although often were not: on time, prepared for their cases and respectful to everyone around them.\u201cThat was the only standard that I had of what it meant to be a doctor \u2014 especially someone like me, who doesn\u2019t come from a family of doctors,\u201d said Mr. Bervell, 28, a fourth-year medical student at Washington State University. Mr. Bervell, who is Ghanian American, is one of the first Black medical students at the medical college, which opened in 2017.From the moment students set foot in medical school, they are instilled with the concept of medical professionalism: their sacred responsibility to conduct themselves with the values of a profession that is granted automatic trust in society. \u201cIt is the first thing they tell you: You are now literally a medical professional,\u201d Mr. Bervell said.The same metric can be used to determine whether or not a med student becomes a doctor at all.Starting in their third year, Mr. Bervell learned, he and his classmates would be regularly assessed on their professional behavior, along with other attributes like communication skills. Faculty, staff and other students could also report specific concerns about an individual\u2019s professionalism, resulting in write-ups the contents of which could become attached to their permanent records, following them like scarlet letters.The problem, as many medical students have also learned, is that where \u201cprofessional\u201d is vague, \u201cunprofessional\u201d is even more so. Depending on who makes the call, unprofessional behavior can mean hugging your program director, letting a bra strap show, wearing braids, donning a swimsuit over the weekend or wearing a \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d sweatshirt in the E.R.As a result, professionalism exists at two levels, as both a lofty standard of behavior and a (sometimes literal) list of dos and don\u2019ts that blur ethics and appearance. That second meaning can prove particularly pernicious to residents of color, said Dr. Adaira Landry, an adviser at Harvard Medical School and co-author on a recent journal article on the \u201coverpolicing\u201d of Black residents.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2404,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2418"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2420,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions\/2420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}