Professionalism in medical students at a private medical college in Karachi, Pakistan.

OBJECTIVE: To determine levels of professionalism in undergraduate medical students at a private medical college and assess how changes emerge during their training. METHODS: The study was conducted at Aga Khan University, a tertiary care teaching hospital, during November and December 2011. Freshmen, Year 3 and Year 5 students were requested to fill out a questionnaire. It was designed to assess the participants' levels of professionalism and how they perceived the professional environment around them by incorporating previously described scales. The questionnaire was re-validated on a random sample of practising clinicians at the same hospital. SPSS 17 was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: The study sample comprised 204 participants. The mean score for level of individual professionalism was 7.72+/-3.43. Only 13 (6.4%) students had a score one standard deviation above the faculty mean. About 24 (11.8%) were one standard deviation and 35 (17.2%) were 2 standard deviations below the faculty mean. The remaining 130 (63.7%) were >2 standard deviations below the faculty mean. Considering the level of education, the mean score for level of professionalism was 8.00+/-3.39 for freshmen, 6.85+/-3.41 for year 3 students, and 8.40+/-3.34 for year 5 students. CONCLUSION: The currently employed teaching practices inculcating the values of professionalism in medical students are serving as a buffer to maintain the pre-training levels of professionalism from declining.

Faculty and patient evaluations of radiology residents' communication and interpersonal skills.

OBJECTIVE: To assess communication and interpersonal skills (CIS) of radiology residents through faculty and standardised patients (SP). METHODS: In this day-long objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) in January 2009, 42 radiology residents took part at six stations in Karachi, each with a standardised patient and a faculty evaluator. Each encounter lasted 15 minutes followed by independent assessments of the residents by both the evaluators. RESULTS: Based on rating-scale evaluations, all cases had satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha 0.6 to 0.9). The alpha values were comparatively diminutive against the checklist scores. Correlation among faculty was 0.6 (p<0.001) with the use of both the checklist and the rating scale. Among standardised patient, intra-class correlation was 0.6 (p<0.001) for checklists and 0.7 (p=0.001) for rating scales. Moderate to strong correlations (r=0.6 to 0.9) existed between checklist and rating scores by the same type of evaluator. Correlations among the faculty and standardised patient using the same assessment tool were unimpressive. CONCLUSION: Both checklists and rating scales can serve as satisfactory assessment tools for communication and interpersonal skills using objective structured and clinical examination with the assistance of faculty and standardised patients.