Desafíos en la formación de los valores del profesionalismo médico en tiempos del COVID-19 y de crisis social / Challenges for training medical professionalism values in times of COVID-19 and social crisis

ABSTRACT

The essence of professional education not only involves transmitting knowledge, but also values and attitudes for a practice that allows us to face changing global and national scenarios. Physicians are currently facing new challenges derived from the impacts of the pandemic as well as the social crisis. Increased workload, limited access to health systems, economic uncertainty, and increased public scrutiny hamper physicians to fulfill their responsibilities to patients and society. Likewise, digital learning and few opportunities for face-to-face practice during the pandemic abruptly altered the training process for students and residents. In this essay, teaching of medical professionalism and its values is reviewed, considering the challenges posed by new social and healthcare contexts fort the future professional behavior. This commitment, however, requires not only ethical values but also humanism and social commitment. Medical professionalism acts as a stabilizing and morally protective social force. Thus, it is critical to fathom essential values of professionalism that characterize medical practice today. Indeed, the explicit incorporation of these values in undergraduate and postgraduate programs will undoubtedly allow the training of better professionals for the practice of medicine. (Rev Med Chile 2022; 150 1248-1255)