Defining fitness and aptitude to practice medicine

Abstract

This article describes the use of the critical incident technique to define non-cognitive behaviours, referred to as ‘fitness and aptitude’ that physicians should demonstrate in their practice. A total of 484 behaviours were categorized under four categories: attitude and personal attributes; communication; practice organization; and professional competence. Each category was further subdivided into subcategories. The communication category was by far the largest, representing 46% of all behaviours. The behaviours were written as objectives so that they could be included in a medical school curriculum and evaluated with much less subjectivity.