Webinar series highlights importance of professionalism in health sciences

Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) has launched a new webinar series titled “Exploring Professionalism in Diverse Learning Environments.” The yearlong series consists of live interactive webinars delivered by leading medical educators.

Coordinated by the Division of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) at WCM-Q and directed by WCM-Q’s Dr. Moune Jabre, assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Amal Khidir, associate professor of pediatrics, Dr. Fatimah Isa, assistant professor of psychology teaching in medicine, and Dr. Mange Manyama, assistant professor of anatomy in radiology, the series aims to enable healthcare professionals to reflect on and discuss how to foster professionalism in diverse learning environments. The program further encourages participants to explore the use of coaching skills to promote and remediate professionalism lapses in a multicultural context.

The series is aimed at allied health professionals, dentists, educators, nurses, pharmacists, physicians, researchers, and students.

The first webinar of the series was titled "Professional Identity Formation in the Health Sciences. Not a Destination but a Journey to Where?" and designed to enable participants to describe the process of professional identity formation and socialization, recognize the potential positive and negative impact of socialization into a community of practice on individual learners, and explain the link between identity formation and communities of practice.

The webinar was led by Dr. Richard Cruess, dean emeritus and emeritus professor of surgery and health sciences education at McGill University. Dr. Cruess spent his entire professional career at the faculty of medicine at McGill University, where he served as chair of orthopedics and dean of the faculty of medicine until his retirement in 2020. He received many accolades during his career, including an honorary degree from Laval University, a Companion of the Order of Canada, and an Officer of l’Ordre National du Québec.

Dr. Cruess has taught and carried out independent research on professionalism in medicine and published widely on the subject.

Dr. Cruess said: “Historically, physicians have been expected to fulfill the traditional role of the healer, and the responsibility for ensuring that this occurs rests with medical schools and teaching hospitals. The increasing complexity of healthcare systems throughout the world has made this more difficult. One solution has been to specifically address the issue by including it in programs that explicitly teach professionalism, attempting to ensure that all physicians, upon entering practice, have come to think, act, and feel like a doctor.”

Dr. Jabre said: “Teaching medical professionalism is an essential element of medical education and a fundamental requirement to help ensure that healthcare practitioners are equipped with the tools and skills needed to become even better healthcare professionals. We are delighted to host the first webinar in our series and look forward to continuing to welcome leading medical educators and participants who are committed to continuous development.”

In Qatar, WCM-Q is accredited as a provider of continuing medical education by the Department of Healthcare Professions (DHP) of the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and is accredited internationally by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).