Professional Development in Medical School
Professional conduct must begin in medical school. In this issue, commentators describe what should be done when a student fudges an answer about a patient’s lab report on morning rounds, or “scrubs in” on all the interesting surgeries and prevents her peers from having that opportunity, or decides that pre-rounding on patients is a waste of time. The NYU School of Medicine students who edited this issue pioneered a student-led initiative for teaching and evaluating professionalism in medical school and drew these cases from their experience. Other April articles discuss the new field of medical education research, legislation that protects physician apologies from being admissible as evidence in liability suits, the debate about “no-fault” clauses as the cure for the medical liability crisis, and the perennial question of what doctors and society expect from each other.