The Tasks of Medical Education to Support the Formation of Medical Professional Identity

Building professional identity is the most basic purpose of medical education. Students who enter medical schools do not have an identity rooted in the medical profession, and universities should therefore take steps to help students form their identity as doctors, attitudes, beliefs, and values through the curriculum. However, while medical knowledge and clinical skills are fully reflected in basic medical education, issues persist regarding education on values, attitudes, and beliefs that are important for professional identity. Regarding the process of professional identity formation, it is important to keep in mind that rapid changes in modern society lead to corresponding changes in socio-cultural expectations and demands related to professional identity, resulting in discrepancies between the reality of medical education and the actual field of medicine. Medical schools need to prepare students for these discrepancies, and in-depth discussions should address what is important and what should be solved first at medical education sites. However, it is difficult to generalize the tasks of professional identity formation in the field of medical education because each medical school may have unique circumstances. This article discusses the tasks that medical education should solve for professional identity formation education in terms of five aspects: establishing learning outcomes, training educational experts, introducing transformative learning, utilizing self-directed learning, and developing evaluation methods.