• Eduardo Fasce, Max Echeverría, Olga Matus, Liliana Ortiz, Sylvia Palacios, and Alejandro Soto.
• Departamento de Educación Médica, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Concepción, Chile. efasce@udec.cl
• Rev Med Chil. 2009 Jun 1;137(6):746-52.

BackgroundProfessionalism should be included as a fundamental component in the curriculum of undergraduate as well as graduate students of Medicine. Future physicians should be aware of the attributes that a professional should possess.AimTo analyze the ideal medical doctor attributes from the point of view of physicians and students of Medicine.Material And MethodsOne hundred four physicians (MD) and 47 students answered a free association test on the attributes they would assign to a good physician. The test was applied via Internet to professionals, and students were tested in group dynamics at the beginning of the class on Bioethics and Professionalism. Data were processed according to the Lexical Availability Model (LAM) which provides quantitative as well as qualitative evaluations.ResultsThe attributes with higher scores among MD's were honesty (0.379), regular academic updating (0.373), ability (0.325) and empathy (0.241). Among students, the selected attributes were excellence (0.625), empathy (0.511), responsibility (0.280) and ability (0.209). A general agreement was found among physicians and students, excepts by the fact that MD's consider continuing academic updating as the most important attribute.ConclusionsThe attributes that physicians and medical students evaluate as essential in professionalism were identified using the LAM approach. At the beginning of the career, students have a definite humanistic approach to their future profession.

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