How Do Medical Students Learn Professionalism During Clinical Education? A Qualitative Study of Faculty Members' and Interns' Experiences

Introduction: Influence the professional personality development and related behaviors is one of the most challenging and complicated issues in medical education. Medical students acquire their professional attitudes gradually during their education in clinical wards which profoundly affects their future manner. This study was performed in order to answer this core question: "Which experiences do teachers and interns have from professionalism learning in clinical education?". Methods: In a qualitative study with purposive sampling, 10 teachers and 10 interns of internal medicine and surgery wards were selected and interviewed using semi-structured method. Data was analyzed using thematic content analysis based on Krippendorff's approach including: data gathering, data reduction, deduction, and analysis. Member check and asking colleagues were used for data authentication and rigor. Results: Five themes were revealed as taught matters of professionalism in clinical education by participants in this study which included "information exchange" such as communication with patient and colleague, and providing patient with information, "response to human munificence" such as observing patients' rights, and respecting others, "affection" such as sympathy, compassion, and altruism, "trust" such as honesty and confidentiality, and trust to physician, and "professional accountability" such as responsibi-lity, and fault acceptance. Conclusion: Positive and negative experiences in learning professionalism demonstrates the role of hidden curriculum in clinical education. Negative experiences may cause unprofessional and immoral behaviors and leave a negative educational effect on forming professional performances. It is recommended to familiarize faculty members with professionalism more than before, pay attention to the role of hidden curriculum and faculty members as role models, integrate professionalism criteria in evaluation forms, and consider kind of systematic supervision on students' and faculty members' performance in order to modify the current situation.