Physician professional behaviour affects outcomes: a framework for teaching professionalism during anesthesia...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Professionalism in Medicine
• Patient Outcomes

Background:

• Unprofessional behavior is prevalent among medical students, residents, and physicians.
• Personality traits evident early in training correlate with unprofessional conduct.

Purpose of the Study:

• Examine the link between physician professional behavior and patient outcomes.
• Assess patient satisfaction with care.
• Investigate the potential for complaints, discipline, and litigation.
• Review structured teaching and evaluation of professionalism for anesthesia residents.

Main Methods:

• Searched OVID Medline and PubMed databases.
• Surveyed Canadian anesthesiology program directors on professionalism training and evaluation.

Main Results:

• Unprofessional behavior correlates with patient dissatisfaction, complaints, and lawsuits.
• Adverse patient outcomes are linked to unprofessional physician conduct.
• Physician health and workplace relationships suffer from unprofessional behaviors.
• Canadian program directors acknowledge the need for organized professionalism training.

Conclusions:

• A framework for defining behavioral expectations and evaluation mechanisms is proposed.
• Explicit definition of behavioral expectations and assessment processes is necessary.
• Clear, graded responses to unprofessional behavior are emphasized.