Professionalism in medical students at a private medical college in Karachi, Pakistan

Objective: to determine levels of professionalism in undergraduate medical students at a private medical collegeand assess how changes emerge during their training. methods: the study was conducted at aga khan university, a tertiary care teaching hospital, during november and december 2011. freshmen, year 3 and year 5 students were requested to fill out a questionnaire. it was designed to assess the participants' levels of professionalism and how they perceived the professional environment around them by incorporating previously described scales. the questionnaire was re-validated on a random sample of practising clinicians at the same hospital. spss 17 was used for statistical analysis. results: the study sample comprised 204 participants. the mean score for level of individual professionalism was 7.72±3.43. only 13 (6.4%) students had a score one standard deviation above the faculty mean. about 24 (11.8%) were one standard deviation and 35 (17.2%) were 2 standard deviations below the faculty mean. the remaining 130 (63.7%) were >2 standard deviations below the faculty mean. considering the level of education,the mean score for level of professionalism was 8.00±3.39 for freshmen, 6.85±3.41 for year 3 students, and 8.40±3.34 for year 5 students. conclusion: the currently employed teaching practices inculcating the values of professionalism in medical students are serving as a buffer to maintain the pre-training levels of professionalism from declining.