Organised by SMA Centre for Medical Ethics and Professionalism (CMEP), the two-day Core Concepts in Medical Professionalism workshop saw its fourth run held on 1 and 8 July 2017 at Grand Copthorne Waterfront Singapore.
The workshop helped participants to gain a deeper understanding on the concepts of professionalism amid the ever-changing healthcare landscape. Medical professionalism are the shared competency standards and ethical values that medical professionals promise to uphold in their work, and what the public and individual patients can and should expect from them. Professionalism in medicine requires the physician to serve the interests of the patient above those of his/her own and it encompasses a set of competencies, values, virtues, behaviour (professional conduct), outcomes (performance) and relationships.
Speakers at the workshop were from the SMA CMEP core faculty and included Dr T Thirumoorthy, Dr Hairil Abdullah, Dr Luke Toh, A/Prof Jason Yap, Dr Peter Loke, A/Prof Gerald Chua, Adj Assistant Prof Vishal G Shelat and Dr Devanand Anantham. Topics covered over the two-day workshop were Collegiality, Conflict of Interest, Confidentiality and Privacy, Consent, Doctor-Patient Relationship, Ethical Case Analysis, Professionalism, Professionalism: Can It be Taught and Evaluated, and Professional Accountability and Governance.
Throughout the workshop, participants were provided with thought-provoking and stimulating case studies, offering a platform for both participants and speakers to share their personal experiences. Speakers with in-depth understanding of the concepts in professionalism helmed the various topics and imparted valuable knowledge to the participants. The interactive teaching approach with the use of case scenarios and audience response clickers were also administered during the workshop to encourage active discussion between participants and faculty. This approach enabled participants to have a divergent thinking needed to solve difficult situations that they may face in the future.
This year's workshop had 16 participants attending Day 1 (1 July 2017) and 14 participants attending Day 2 (8 July 2017). Representing the various healthcare professionals are GPs, cardiologists, psychiatrists, radiologists and rehabilitation medicine physicians. The workshop ended with positive feedback from participants, with a weighted average of 4.11 (out of 5) for Day 1 and 4.22 (out of 5) for Day 2, with the feedback that "concepts presented will be useful and relevant to my work". We would like to thank all SMA CMEP core speakers and participants for their willingness to continue learning and for taking their time off on two Saturday afternoons to attend this workshop.