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Should Clinical Training Rely on Role Modeling?

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Teaching Professional Attitudes and Basic Clinical Skills to Medical Students

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Abstract

Observed behaviors affect learning more than formal teaching, and as many as 90 % of medical graduates remember role models who shaped their professional attitudes. It has been reported that exposure to physicians at various clinical settings affected student career choices, and that role modeling predicted trainee behavior regarding disclosure of errors. The medical literature addresses role modeling as a powerful teaching strategy, and educators have recommended training role models who would reinforce desirable professional attributes. Still, some authors have maintained that role modeling encourages imitative rather than active learning, and that role models exert little influence on student values because they merely reinforce views held at the start of training.

This chapter is an updated version of: J Benbassat. Role Modeling in Medical Education: The Importance of a Reflective Imitation. Academic Medicine 2014; 89:550–554. With permission by Wolters Kluwer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Smokler Center for Health Policy Research, Mayers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, Jerusalem, Israel

    Jochanan Benbassat

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  1. Jochanan Benbassat
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Correspondence to Jochanan Benbassat .

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Benbassat, J. (2015). Should Clinical Training Rely on Role Modeling?. In: Teaching Professional Attitudes and Basic Clinical Skills to Medical Students. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20089-7_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20089-7_15

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-20088-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-20089-7

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