Professionalism and Self-Evaluation: Diverging Perspectives Among Physicians and Nurses

Professionalism among healthcare professionals is often defined in terms such as altruism, humanism, and excellence. The integration of such professionalism ideals to healthcare professionals' practice poses a challenge to medical tutors. We examined the assessment of professionalism among physicians and nurses by their peers and evaluated the significance of each professional role component within each sector. We also performed a cross-sector assessment whereby physicians assessed nurses' professionalism and vice versa.

A survey among physicians, interns, and nurses. The participants were asked to rate the extent that each of the 12 characteristics contributes to physicians' and nurses' professionalism of on a scale of 1 (does not contribute at all) to 10 (highly contributes). Each participant rated the contribution of each component to the professionalism of their own occupation (direct scoring) and to the professionalism of the other occupation (cross scoring).

In total, 300 healthcare professionals (mean age 36.6, 46% males) responded to the survey. The most highly contributing characteristics to physicians' professionalism were knowledge, responsibility, decision-making and leadership, clustered as "strategic judgment". The most highly contributing characteristics to nurses' professionalism were responsibility, personal attention, empathy, and skills, clustered as "bedside approach" and "performance abilities". Cross-assessment among professionals was different: Nurses assigned higher ratings in general, interns assigned higher ratings to physicians' characteristics, whereas physicians assigned lower ratings to professionalism characteristics, and especially to those of nurses. Nurses emphasized patient centeredness and communication skills more than physicians. Nurses and interns appreciated teamwork compared to physicians. Major differences in how physicians and nurses perceive professionalism revealed physicians' emphasis on "strategic judgment" while nurses emphasis on "bedside approach".

Physicians and nurses hold differing viewpoints on many topics, including the objectives of their mission, expected performance, and activity types. Medical professionals can assess their colleagues and partners, recognizing both strengths and weaknesses in themselves and others.