TY - JOUR
T1 - Professionalism and ethics education on relationships and boundaries
T2 - Psychiatric residents' training preferences
AU - Lapid, Maria
AU - Moutier, Christine
AU - Dunn, Laura
AU - Green Hammond, Katherine
AU - Roberts, Laura Weiss
N1 - Funding Information:
Drs. Lapid, Moutier, and Green Hammond declare no competing interests. Dr. Dunn receives grant funding from the National Institute of Aging and from the Greenwall Foundation. Dr. Laura Roberts’ work is funded through the Research for a Healthier Tomorrow-Program Development Fund, a component of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin endowment at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Disclosures of Academic Psychiatry editors are published in each January issue.
PY - 2009/11
Y1 - 2009/11
N2 - Objective: Awareness of the privileges and limits of one's role as physician, as well as recognition and respect for the patient as a human being, are central to ethical medical practice. The authors were particularly interested in examining the attitudes and perceived needs of psychiatric residents toward education on professional boundaries and relationships given the heightened current focus on professionalism and ethics. Methods: Residents from six psychiatric residencies provided views on professionalism and ethics education on a survey encompassing 10 domains of professionalism. The authors focus on residents' perceived need for education on boundaries in the psychiatrist-patient relationship and in peer-peer and supervisor-trainee interactions. Results: Respondents (N=134) felt that nine relationship and boundary issues arising during training should receive more education: being asked to work with inadequate supervision, resolving conflicts between attendings and trainees, resident health care, adequately caring for patients while adhering to work-hour guidelines, performing work beyond one's competence, mistreatment of residents, sexual/romantic relationships between faculty and trainees, mistreatment of medical students, and sexual/romantic relationships between residents and medical students (p<0.05 in all cases). In addition, 15 relationship and boundary issues arising during clinical practice were felt to warrant more education: responding to impaired colleagues, coping with mistakes in clinical care, reporting mistakes, balancing personal and professional life, resolving conflicts, writing prescriptions for friends or family, allocation of health care resources, providing medical advice to friends and family, physicians' social responsibilities, interacting with families, medicine as a profession, gender bias, being asked to falsify clinical information, accepting gifts from patients, and personal relationships with patients (p<0.05 in all cases). Conclusion: The authors found a perceived need for more education for psychiatric residents for the majority of topics pertaining to boundaries and relationships. Residents who reported encountering ethical dilemmas more frequently wanted more education on these topics.
AB - Objective: Awareness of the privileges and limits of one's role as physician, as well as recognition and respect for the patient as a human being, are central to ethical medical practice. The authors were particularly interested in examining the attitudes and perceived needs of psychiatric residents toward education on professional boundaries and relationships given the heightened current focus on professionalism and ethics. Methods: Residents from six psychiatric residencies provided views on professionalism and ethics education on a survey encompassing 10 domains of professionalism. The authors focus on residents' perceived need for education on boundaries in the psychiatrist-patient relationship and in peer-peer and supervisor-trainee interactions. Results: Respondents (N=134) felt that nine relationship and boundary issues arising during training should receive more education: being asked to work with inadequate supervision, resolving conflicts between attendings and trainees, resident health care, adequately caring for patients while adhering to work-hour guidelines, performing work beyond one's competence, mistreatment of residents, sexual/romantic relationships between faculty and trainees, mistreatment of medical students, and sexual/romantic relationships between residents and medical students (p<0.05 in all cases). In addition, 15 relationship and boundary issues arising during clinical practice were felt to warrant more education: responding to impaired colleagues, coping with mistakes in clinical care, reporting mistakes, balancing personal and professional life, resolving conflicts, writing prescriptions for friends or family, allocation of health care resources, providing medical advice to friends and family, physicians' social responsibilities, interacting with families, medicine as a profession, gender bias, being asked to falsify clinical information, accepting gifts from patients, and personal relationships with patients (p<0.05 in all cases). Conclusion: The authors found a perceived need for more education for psychiatric residents for the majority of topics pertaining to boundaries and relationships. Residents who reported encountering ethical dilemmas more frequently wanted more education on these topics.
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U2 - 10.1176/appi.ap.33.6.461
DO - 10.1176/appi.ap.33.6.461
M3 - Article
C2 - 19933889
AN - SCOPUS:72149120832
SN - 1042-9670
VL - 33
SP - 461
EP - 469
JO - Academic Psychiatry
JF - Academic Psychiatry
IS - 6
ER -