As the chapters in this book demonstrate, professionalism is taught and learned in diverse and complex ways. Indeed, the past decade has witnessed a significant increase in the teaching and learning of professionalism in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. However, despite this rapid growth, few authors have described the educational frameworks that underpin their work in this area, even though we all hold different assumptions about what we teach and how we try to achieve our goals.

For example, one contemporary school of thought has emphasized that professionalism needs to be taught explicitly, either by defining core content or outlining professionalism as a list of traits or characteristics. From this perspective, the goal is to ensure that every physician understands the nature of professionalism, its basis in morality, the reasons for its existence, its characteristics, and the obligations necessary to sustain it. Others have stated that the teaching of professionalism should be approached primarily as a moral endeavor, emphasizing altruism and service, the importance of role modeling, self-awareness, community service, and other methods of acquiring experiential knowledge. In this school of thought, explicit teaching receives less attention, and learning is embedded in an authentic activity. Although both approaches are needed to promote the teaching and learning of professionalism, as teachers and educators we must clarify the assumptions that we hold and try to answer the following question: What is our guiding theory or educational framework?