Medical Professional Behavior and Fitness for Practice

Duty of Doctors

• Doctors have a duty to follow sets of standards of medical care and good medical practice.
• Patients must be able to trust doctors with their lives and health, and doctors must show respect to human lives and values.

Key Duties of Doctors

• Knowledge, Skills, and Performance: make the care of patients the first concern, provide a good standard of patient care, keep professional knowledge and skills up to date, and recognize and work within the limits of competence.
• Safety and Quality: take rapid action if patient safety, dignity, or comfort is being compromised, and protect and promote the health of patients and the public.
• Communication, Partnership, and Teamwork: treat patients as individuals and respect their dignity, work in partnership with patients, and respect their right to make decisions about their treatment and care.
• Maintaining Trust: be honest and open, act with integrity, and never discriminate unfairly against patients or colleagues.

Developing Professionalism

• Develop healthy ways to cope with stress and challenges (resilience).
• Deal with doubt and uncertainty, and apply ethical and moral reasoning to work.
• Manage time effectively, work in a team, and give constructive and honest feedback.
• Maintain own learning and self-development, be responsive to feedback, deal with and mitigate against personal bias, and get feedback and assistance.

Professional Behavior in Clinical Settings

• Always introduce oneself to patients, check that the patient does not object to the presence of students, and dress smartly with a visible ID badge.
• Arrive on time, be honest with patients if unsure of an answer, record work clearly and legibly, and get rid of notes carefully.

Social Media and Professionalism

• Do not share or post information about patients that could identify them.
• Do not post complaints about individuals at medical school or clinical placement.
• Remember that social media sites cannot guarantee confidentiality.

Behavior Outside of Medical School

• Avoid actions that undermine patient confidence in doctors or the medical profession.
• Do not make discriminatory comments about individuals or groups.

Key Areas of Concern in Professionalism

• Poor time management, non-attendance, cheating, poor communication skills, and passing off others' work as one's own.
• Disruptive behavior, challenging behavior towards teachers, and failure to answer or respond to communication.
• Misuse of social media, online bullying, break of confidentiality, and failure to obtain proper consent from patients.
• Impaired fitness to practice in medical students, including misconduct, deficient professional performance, and unsatisfactory academic performance.

Impaired Fitness to Practice

• Misconduct related to honesty, trust, and character.
• Deficient professional performance and unsatisfactory academic performance.
• Cautions and convictions, adverse physical or mental health, and failure to be immunized against common serious communicable diseases.
• Misconduct and health conditions relating to drug or alcohol use, driving under the influence, misuse of prescription medications, and alcohol consumption that affects clinical work.

This quiz assesses the understanding of medical students on professional behavior and fitness for practice, including duties and standards of medical care. It is designed for medical students, particularly those in pediatric care.