Professionalism at JABSOM: A Professionalism Philosophy to Live By

“Professionalism in Medicine” has been an institution-wide initiative to include students, residents, faculty, and staff at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM). Professionalism is not well defined at JABSOM, nor is there a clear definition at many other schools. Specific Task Forces over many years contributed to the values and expectations of professionalism at JABSOM which are stated in Graduation Objectives, course handbooks, and several policies including social media use and guidelines for appropriate appearance and attire. Most recently, there have been further professionalism issues, prompting the JABSOM Curriculum Committee to create a Professionalism Task Force in 2020 to:
1) Discuss ways to promote professionalism amongst the student body and the faculty
2) Determine which professionalism issues should be tracked by the Office of Student Affairs
3) Recommend which degrees of infraction should be in the JABSOM students’ permanent record, and which could also be notated in the Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE), which is a summary letter of evaluation intended to provide residency program directors an honest and objective summary of a student's salient experiences, attributes, and academic performance.
4) Establish guidelines for the JABSOM professionalism board, including purpose and membership of the board as well as which professionalism issues should be heard by this professionalism board