WHAT DO THEY SAY ABOUT PROFESSIONALISM? PERCEPTIONS OF FISRT YEAR MEDICAL STUDENTS AT THE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE OF UNIVERSITAS GADJAH MADA

The focus of medical education in the past century has been on knowledge and skills. In 2003, the World Federation of Medical Education (WFME) promoted the highest scientific and ethical standards in medical education, implementing the Competence Based Curriculum (Knowledge, Cognitive, Skill/Phsichomotor, and Behaviour/Affective Domains) in basic, postgraduate, and continuing professional development (CPD). This required bringing all medical school curricula into conformity with it. Since 2007, School of Medicine of Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia has used this Competence Based Curriculum. This study focused on the perceptions of first year medical students about professionalism after they had just finished their first block, using a qualitative approach based on semi-structured focus group discussions. I purposively selected 22 students from the regular program, of the class of 2011, after they had just finished their first block of studies on “being a medical student” and “the locomotor system.” Clearly the first block design has successfully enabled these medical to reflect on issues of professionalism and to define its main components appropriately. Early clinical exposure to primary care environments provided new insights into issues of the doctor-patient encounter. Student feedback can help develop new tools to more comprehensively cover all aspects of professionalism and develop a new framework for fostering professionalism at an early stage of medical education. Armed with the slogan, “start from our own self, start from little things, and start now,” freshman medical students have great potential for bringing about a new paradigm in medical professionalism and to become agents of change.