Syed Shakil-ur Rehman, Shakeel Ahmad, Raheela Yasmeen.
How do Physical Therapy Teachers Perceive \'Professionalism\' in Pakistani Context?.
J Islamic Int Med Coll Jan ;11(3):126-30.

Objective: The objective of the study was to determine that how Physical therapy teachers perceive 'Professionalism' in Pakistani Context? Study Design: This was a qualitative case study. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in five different universities from five different cities of th th Pakistan from 10 of January to 25 June 2013 at different time. Materials and Methods: Semi structured Interviews were conducted with 15 Physical Therapy teachers of 05 different universities from 05 different cities of Pakistan. The Physical therapy teachers with at least 5 years teaching experience in a university were included for data collection. The interviews were audio recorded; data verbatim transcribed and analyzed manually by open coding and in-Vivo coding. Thematic analysis was done in order to identify different elements of 'Professionalism' in Physical Therapy teachers through finding the patterns in the data. Member checking was done by three researchers in the study in order to validate the data. Results: After thematic analysis based on emerging patterns from transcribed data, following important elements about 'professionalism' in the order of priority were identified; expert in subject with knowledge and skill, behavior and attitude towards the students, patients and staff, Autonomy, serving and benefits to the community and accountability in health services, compassion, moral reasoning, reflective thinker, acquainted with professional ethics, trustworthiness, honest and team based approach. In response to the question about the professionalism in 'Pakistani culture, the faculty responses in the order of priority were as follows; lack of resources, proper jobs, moral support, poor salary packages and financial support and religion boundaries, requirements of the community and cultural hurdle and poor context in the society, lack of governing body, council, responsibility and accountability. Conclusion: It is concluded that for professionalism expertise in subject's domain & skills is the most important element. Besides that behavior and attitude towards students and patients are the key components of professionalism. It is concluded that in Pakistani culture, there is lack of professional behavior in physical therapy teachers/faculty. Majority of the institutes don't concentrate on professionalism.

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