Residency Education Professionalism Vignettes

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has identified 6 general competencies for resident education: (1) medical knowledge, (2) patient care, (3) practice-based learning, (4) interpersonal and communication skills, (5) professionalism, and (6) systems-based practice. Residency programs are required by the ACGME to teach and assess these competencies. Professionalism is a difficult competency to teach and assess and traditionally has been taught through mentoring and passive role modeling. Faculty role models, however, may be positive or negative and, unfortunately, the distinction is typically left to the resident, who may or may not choose correctly or wisely. We hypothesized that the use of small group discussions of professionalism vignettes could produce increased participant satisfaction and confidence in this important competency.