Professional behaviour of medical school graduates: an analysis

Recent graduates (1989-1990) of a traditional school of Chinese medicine were assessed by observers using a 10-item scale for professional behaviour in the non-cognitive realm. Overall, 10.7% of the graduates had low ratings on this scale. Of those who scored in the top two quartiles on this scale, 71.4% reported that 'Professional ethics' was the key determinant of their professional behaviour, whereas legal concerns were the prime motivator for only 3.6% of the top scorers. It was also found that students' scores in the medical ethics course correlated with their professional behaviour score to a statistically significant degree.