Do students learn to be more conscientious at medical school?

Area of Science:

• Medical Education Research
• Professionalism in Healthcare
• Student Assessment

Background:

• Defining, teaching, and measuring professionalism in medical students presents challenges.
• Unprofessional behavior in medical students is linked to postgraduate disciplinary actions.
• A reliable method to identify and intervene in unprofessional undergraduate behavior is needed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the Conscientiousness Index (CI) as a reliable measure of professionalism in undergraduate medical students.
• To determine if teaching and clinical exposure influence conscientiousness between the first and second years of study.

Main Methods:

• Collected Conscientiousness Index (CI) points from three student cohorts over their first two years.
• Awarded CI points for administrative tasks, assignment submission, and attendance.
• Converted CI points to percentages (CI %) for comparison between study years.

Main Results:

• CI % scores were consistently high (peaks >89%) and showed negatively skewed distributions.
• Strong correlations were observed between year 1 and year 2 CI % scores within and across cohorts.
• No significant change in conscientiousness was detected between year 1 and year 2.

Conclusions:

• The Conscientiousness Index (CI) model offers a reliable and easily implementable method for assessing undergraduate medical student conscientiousness.
• Conscientiousness, as measured by the CI model, appears to be a stable characteristic in medical students.
• Findings suggest that teaching and clinical exposure do not significantly alter conscientiousness between the first and second years of medical school.