Introduction:
Professionalism is a crucial skill for clinicians, yet it has not been consistently taught or assessed across didactic curriculum and fieldwork sites. There is not a consistent assessment to evaluate professionalism. Educators in academic and fieldwork settings have concerns about how to objectively assess and provide feedback on student professionalism, despite educators expressing concern about lack of professionalism in students.
Objectives:
The majority of students are eager to learn and apply the skills they need to be effective, ethical OTPs. Learning and applying professionalism skills should be a core component of OTP education, because students enter programs with varying skills in professionalism. Traditionally, there has not been a way for OT students to objectively self-assess their current skills in professionalism. Similarly, OT educators in didactic and clinical education need to be able to assess a student’s current level of professionalism to provide objective, constructive feedback.
Approach:
We provide an overview of professionalism and the profession’s expectations for professionalism. Then, we introduce the self-assessment and educator assessment for professionalism.
Practice Implications and Contributions:
Participants will learn how we utilize the tools in our program to assess and teach professionalism skills throughout our curriculum. Participants will learn how to use both tools, as well as how to imbed professionalism content into their curriculum. Data on the validity of the tool will be presented during this session.