The Medical Professionalism Blog

Here’s the latest medical professionalism articles in this week’s Recommended Reading:

• In Medical Professionalism, Revenue Enhancement, and Self-Interest: An Ethically Ambiguous Association, the author argues that the medical professionalism literature “should distinguish permissible and impermissible self-interested actions” by physicians.  He believes that financial incentives such as pay-for-performance are permissible but are not a substitute for professionalism.
• A commentary on impaired physicians asserts that detecting and addressing impairment in colleagues is an important professional responsibility. Strategies to improve detecting and assisting impaired physicians include removing the stigma surrounding addiction or other health issues, educating physicians on signs of impairment and providing readily available referral sources.

• In a recent Academic Medicine article, the authors report on an Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society-sponsored think tank on remediation of professionalism lapses. The think tank’s recommendations included:
• Performing studies about improving medical professionalism when lapses occur;
• Identifying best evidence-based remediation practices;
• Widely disseminating those practices; and,
• Moving over time from a best-practices approach to remediation (which does not yet exist) to a best-evidence model.