First-year veterinary students' perceptions on the veterinary professionalism attributes important to future success in clinical practice were explored using a card sort technique. The key findings were that self-oriented attributes (overall mean: 3.20; 42% responses were essential) and people-oriented attributes (overall mean: 3.13; 39% essential) were rated more highly than task-oriented attributes (overall mean: 2.98; 31% essential) (1-4 scale: 1 = irrelevant, 4 = essential). Within these overall ratings, the establishment/maintenance of effective client relationships (people-oriented attribute; mean: 3.84) and the ability to be composed under pressure and recover quickly (self-oriented attribute; mean: 3.82) received the highest scores. The highest task-oriented score was the ability to work to a high standard and achieve results (mean: 3.57). There was no difference between ethnicities or between men and women, but respondents < 20 years of age gave higher scores to people-oriented attributes than did older respondents (≥ 20 years). The use of the card sort technique has not been widely reported in veterinary educational literature, and so this study represents a novel approach to garnering opinions from newly enrolled veterinary students-a group of stakeholders whose views on this subject are seldom sought. The results show that first-year veterinary students have well-developed opinions on the key attributes of veterinary professionalism and indicate that the early development of students' opinions needs to be taken into consideration in the design of professionalism curricula within veterinary programs.
Keywords: attributes of professionalism; card sort technique; closed/constrained card sorts; first-year veterinary students; professional skills; veterinary curriculum; veterinary professionalism.