Assessing Medical Professionalism in Future Physicians: A Nationwide Perspective from Saudi Arabia

Background: Medical professionalism is a core competency in medical education and a cornerstone of professional identity formation. In Saudi Arabia, where medical education is rapidly expanding under Vision 2030, limited nationwide evidence exists on professionalism among medical students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from October to November 2024 using the validated Learners’ Attitudes on Medical Professionalism Scale (LAMPS). A convenience sample of 1,234 students from the 2nd–6th years across all five regions and both governmental and private universities completed the survey. LAMPS scores were compared by academic year, gender, GPA, region, and university type using Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Results: Students demonstrated overall favourable yet heterogeneous attitudes toward professionalism across domains, with the highest means in Duty/Accountability (22.3 ± 5.8) and Excellence/Autonomy (18.6 ± 4.7), and lower scores in Honor/Integrity (16.0 ± 4.8), Altruism (15.9 ± 4.5), and Respect (16.4 ± 5.3). Scores increased significantly with academic year (p < .001) and were higher among females than males (p < .001). No differences were observed across GPA groups (p = 0.277). Students from private universities and the Central Region achieved the highest LAMPS scores (p < .001). Conclusion: Saudi medical students demonstrated overall favourable but heterogeneous attitudes toward professionalism, with clear domain-specific strengths and weaknesses. These findings suggest that professionalism development may benefit from being embedded as a longitudinal curricular theme, reinforced by mentorship and aligned with national accreditation standards and international frameworks such as CanMEDS.