professionalism in residents of physical medicine and rehabilitation in iran

professionalism is the foundation of trust on which the doctor-patient relationship is built. this study was performed to measure professionalism in iranian physical medicine and rehabilitation residents as a baseline assessment tool for future studies. this was a descriptive study. the persian version of the american board of internal medicine (abim) questionnaire was distributed among all the second and third-year residents of the medical state universities of iran (n=43). data were summarized as mean (sd), and independent samples t-test was used for comparison of means between genders, and also between the second and third-year residents. forty questionnaires were analyzed. the mean (± sd) age of respondents was 29.95 (± 2.37) years. the mean score (sd) for the overall score was 115.15 (± 17.36) out of 150, and the mean score (± sd) for all items was 7.67 (± 1.15) out of 10. the respondents averaged 5.88 (± 1.69) for items forming the ‘excellence’ factor, 7.98 (± 1.48) for items in ‘altruism/respect’ and 8.92 (± 1.26) for items in the ‘honor/integrity’ subscale. these data may serve as a baseline for future research in this field. the lowest score pertained to excellence, which needs more focus in future studies.