Web modules on professionalism and ethics

Health care disciplines have always held resolutely to a commitment to professionalism and high ethical standards. With the present emphasis on public accountability, professionalism and ethics are receiving enhanced attention in health care education and practice. A challenge for radiologists, radiation oncologists, and medical physicists is to define the scope and depth of knowledge about professionalism and ethics that are necessary for the practice of the disciplines. A further challenge is to develop accessible educational materials that encompass this required knowledge. About 2 years ago, the ABR Foundation decided to address these challenges through the development of an ethics and professionalism curriculum and production of a series of Web-based educational modules that follow the curriculum. Six organizations agreed initially to contribute financially to construction of the curriculum and modules and were later joined by a seventh. The curriculum was developed by the ABR Foundation and included in a request for proposals that was widely distributed. Teams of authors for each of 10 modules were selected from respondents to the request for proposals. As the modules were developed, they were reviewed in 3 successive stages, including peer review by members of the ACR Committee on Professionalism and the RSNA-ACR Task Force on an Ethics Curriculum. After revisions were prepared in response to the reviews, the modules were translated into a format compatible with the e-learning platform on which they are mounted. The modules are now available to all who wish to study them.