Professionalism & Integrity

Revitalizing Professionalism & Professional Integrity

Over the past years, medical journals and the popular press alike have commented on “an erosion of medical professionalism” and “faltering public trust in physicians.” In this new age of powerful commercial forces in health care, AMSA’s national leadership has chosen to make “revitalizing professionalism” a central focus of student action. The resources below are meant to encourage students to redefine the professional code and find their own sense of meaning and commitment in their professional oath. Provided are some guiding principles for students and physicians relevant to practicing ethical and compassionate medicine.

  1. AMSA’s Model Oath for the New Professional
    Putting the ‘Hip’ back in Hippocratic. Update your school’s oath.
  2. AMSA’s Just Medicine Campaign
    Help remove the influences of pharmaceutical advertising from the practice of medicine.
  3. Address your school’s curriculum on professionalism. Approach your Dean and faculty to discuss this important gap in medical education and make sure your existing curriculum deals with important issues like the physician’s responsibility to public health, the need to avoid conflicts of interest with managed care and the pharmaceutical industry, the physician’s role in addressing health disparities and advocating for health care justice and social justice.

In addition to the resources provided here, you can organize your own course. Funded by a grant from the Medicine as a ProfessionHealth Activist Courses for medical students. These courses are designed to train medical students to consider roles as physician advocates and activists and to examine important issues in health care and medical education today.