Integrating professionalism into the curriculum

The Lancet report on Health Professionals for a New Century emphasises the importance of a change to transformative learning i.e. ensuring a move from accumulating facts and professional credentials to a more integrated analytical culture of education. This is essential to achieve the necessary core competences for effective teamwork in health systems and high standards of patient safety. To do this a radical look at how we instil the necessary professional values in our clinical workforce is essential. Concerns over health care safety have questioned the traditional trust placed in doctors. Work in Inter professional teams challenges the time –honoured power doctors have held. Societal values are arguing for robust defensible standards of medical professionalism which patients can challenge. This plenary talk will argue for clear and culturally appropriate institutional definitions of professional behaviour fit for practise in the 21st century. It will explore whether and how it can it be taught and assessed within modern undergraduate and postgraduate curricula emphasising, in the context of patient safety, that a transformative approach to learning is essential