Promoting Professionalism in Medical Practice through Compassionate Transformation: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Objective: Medical professionalism (MP) refers to the values, behaviors, and attitudes that enhance professional relation- ships, public trust, and patient safety. Formal and informal medical curricula convey expectations about professionalization. The We conducted this systematic review with aimed to explain the motivation for exploring compassionate transformation as a pathway to improved medical professionalism in healthcare settings.

Methods: A systematic review was performed in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. These electronic databases encom- passing MEDLINE, Hinari, PsycInfo, SCOPUS, EMBASE; and grey literature were systematically searched using the following MeSH search terms: Promoting Professionalism, Medical practice, Compassionate Transformation. The search criteria incorporated relevant full articles published in English from January 1, 2000, to March 31, 2025 that targeting any aspect of medical professionalism were included. Review articles and evaluations that included non-health care professionals were excluded. Of the included reviews, all included reviews did not conduct quantitative or meta-analysis of the results but rather conducted a qualitative descriptive summary. The systematic quality of the included reviews was assessed using the A MeaSurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) 2 tool.

Results: The search identified 1898 studies for eligibility screening. Ultimately, 14 studies characteristics were eligible for inclusion. The fundamental elements of medical professionalism (MP) were altruism, honesty, professional competence, compassion, responsibility, confidentiality, respect, accountability, excellence, communication, maturity, self-directed learn- ing, scholarship, and leadership. Although measuring professionalism in healthcare is difficult, it is essential to ensuring high-quality treatment and patient trust. Physician burnout also affects professionalism and patient safety, highlighting a structural problem in the medical field that needs to be addressed. MP differs depending on a variety of elements, including generational, social, cultural, contextual, and conceptual issues.

Conclusion: Medical professionalism has been a core value and responsibility of physicians in the care of patients. It became a powerful slogan in medical science that “professionalism must be taught”, and a consensus had to be built that professional- ism should be an intrinsic part of the curriculum.

CME J 2025; 4(1); 54-63