RESEARCH ARTICLE
Comparison of the Professionalism Behaviours of Medical Students from Four GCC Universities with Single-gender and Co-educational Learning Climates
Mona Faisal Al-Qahtani1, Salman Yousuf Guraya2, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2019Volume: 13
First Page: 193
Last Page: 200
Publisher ID: TONURSJ-13-193
DOI: 10.2174/1874434601913010193
Article History:
Received Date: 26/08/2019Revision Received Date: 10/10/2019
Acceptance Date: 14/10/2019
Electronic publication date: 15/11/2019
Collection year: 2019
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Medical professionalism is a multi-dimensional construct that is viewed differently across institutions. Such variations might be related to diverse cultural and societal characteristics of learners and faculty.
Objectives:
This study determined whether differences exist between proposed sanctions for a one-time academic integrity infraction associated with unprofessional behaviors. We selected four medical schools with either single-gender or co-educational learning environments in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
Methods:
The 34-statement Dundee Polyprofessionalism Inventory I was disseminated to all medical students across years in selected institutions. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were conducted, and median scores were used to determine the respondents’ proposed sanctions.
Results:
Of the 1941 invitees, 1313 students responded (response rate of 68%). Significant similarity, as recorded by median sanction scores was recorded for 21 (62%) of the 34 inventory items from two medical schools. However, significant differences of one level of difference between all the median sanction scores for single-gender and co-educational students were found for 32% of inventory items. In co-educational schools, males were stricter than females for 9% and seniors were stricter than juniors for 12% of the inventory items. In contrast, in single-gender schools, females were stricter than males for only 6% of the inventory and seniors were more lenient than juniors for another 6% of the inventory.
Conclusions:
This study reports significant congruence and some differences in medical students’ perceptions of unprofessional behaviors. Educators are urged to develop a unified framework for enforcing sanctions to unprofessional behaviors.
