In recent years, with the advent of competency-based medical school and residency curricula, there has been much more attention focused on the teaching and assessment of professionalism. Professionalism as a competency is considered paramount because of the trust that the public places in physicians. This construct has evolved over time from being value-based, to being behavioral-based, and is now also considered an important aspect of professional identity formation. The assessment of professionalism has also evolved with the development of newer and more innovative ways of ascertaining the professionalism of a physician. Modern assessments of professionalism are able to take into account the context, conflict in values, and techniques used to resolve the professional dilemma.

This thesis is a compilation of research studies that were designed to gather validity evidence for the assessment of professionalism in a residency admissions process. The purpose of this work is to determine if it is possible to screen residency applicants for professionalism deficiencies in order to ensure that those applicants that are ultimately chosen are a good fit for the residency program and will ultimately become high quality pediatricians.