↓ Skip to main content

A qualitative thematic content analysis of medical students’ essays on professionalism

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medical Education, May 2017
Altmetric Badge

Mentioned by

twitter
2 X users

Citations

dimensions_citation
11 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
81 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
A qualitative thematic content analysis of medical students’ essays on professionalism
Published in
BMC Medical Education, May 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12909-017-0920-5
Pubmed ID
Authors

So-Youn Park, Changwoo Shon, Oh Young Kwon, Tai Young Yoon, Ivo Kwon

Abstract

Physicians in both Western and Eastern countries are being confronted by changes in health care delivery systems and medical professionalism values. The traditional concept of "In-Sul" (benevolent art) and the modern history of South Korea have led to cultural differences between South Korea and other countries in conceptualizing medical professionalism; thus, we studied medical students' perceptions of professionalism as described in essays written on this topic. In 2014, we asked 109 first-year medical students who were enrolled in a compulsory ethics course to anonymously write a description of an instance of medical professionalism that they had witnessed, as well as reflecting on their own professional context. We then processed 105 valid essays using thematic content analysis with computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software. Thematic analysis of the students' essays revealed two core aspects of professionalism in South Korea, one focused on respect for patients and the other on physicians' accountability. The most common theme regarding physician-patient relationships was trust. By contrast, distributive justice was thought to be a non-essential aspect of professionalism. In Western countries, physicians tend to promote justice in the health care system, including fair distribution of medical resources; however, we found that medical students in South Korea were more inclined to emphasize doctors' relationships with patients. Medical educators should develop curricular interventions regarding medical professionalism to meet the legitimate needs of patients in their own culture. Because professionalism is a dynamic construct of culture, medical educators should reaffirm cultural context-specific definitions of professionalism for development of associated curricula.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 2 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 81 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 81 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 12 15%
Student > Ph. D. Student 9 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 7 9%
Student > Bachelor 7 9%
Student > Master 7 9%
Other 15 19%
Unknown 24 30%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 16 20%
Nursing and Health Professions 8 10%
Social Sciences 7 9%
Psychology 4 5%
Arts and Humanities 4 5%
Other 14 17%
Unknown 28 35%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 May 2017.
All research outputs
#18,616,159
of 23,881,329 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medical Education
#2,794
of 3,576 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#225,931
of 312,942 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medical Education
#36
of 47 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,881,329 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 19th percentile – i.e., 19% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,576 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.4. This one is in the 17th percentile – i.e., 17% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 312,942 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 23rd percentile – i.e., 23% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 47 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 21st percentile – i.e., 21% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.