Perceptions of medical students towards the practice of professionalism at the Arabian Gulf University

BACKGROUND: To enhance the development of a curriculum in professionalism for medical students, the aim of this research was to evaluate medical students’ responses regarding professionalism teaching and behaviors in their clinical experience at the Arabian Gulf University (AGU). METHODS: A retrospective cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study involving Year 5 medical students at the AGU. We used a “climate of professionalism” survey that consisted of two parts. The first part asked students to rate their perceptions of the frequency of professionalism practices of their peers (medical students), residents, and faculty. The response choices included: “mostly”, “sometimes”, and “rarely”. The second part asked the students to assess their perceptions of the professionalism teaching and behaviors of the faculty. The response choices included: “mostly”, “sometimes”, and “rarely”. We calculated an overall score for the responses in both parts of the questionnaire by assigning 3, 2, and 1 points to the response choices, respectively. We also calculated subscale scores reflecting different professionalism constructs. We used descriptive statistics and a one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by multiple testing comparisons with Bonferroni correction to examine pairwise comparisons. A p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: The mean total scores of participants’ ratings of professional behaviors of medical students, residents, and faculty for each academic year were approximately 60% of the total maximum score. The mean total scores of participants’ rating of faculty’s teaching and modeling behaviors concerning professionalism were approximately 58% of the maximum score. Compared with similar studies performed in the Arab Region, ratings regarding professional teaching and modeling of professionalism were lower. CONCLUSION: We recommend the further evaluation of professionalism teaching and behaviors at the AGU and further discussions regarding curriculum reform. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-020-02464-z.