Project Peak

Project PEAK (Professionalism, Empathy and Kindness) promotes core values in medicine, emphasizing respect, inclusion, excellence, humanism and teamwork. The Office of the Learning Environment supports this effort by collecting and sharing real-life stories from healthcare professionals to reinforce professionalism. 

Professionalism, Empathy and Kindness

Professionalism is a core value of the medical profession and encompasses those attributes and behaviors that support respect, inclusion, excellence, humanism, responsibility, trust, altruism, empathy, accountability, kindness and teamwork in all aspects of our institution. Professionalism should be embedded in all of our activities. It involves relationships and interactions between all those involved in medical education, and the delivery of patient care. Professional interactions in medicine occur daily and involve many. Interactions may occur between physicians, physician assistants, anesthesiologist assistants, advanced practice providers, nursing staff, students, patients and their families, administrators, research staff and subjects, volunteers and other healthcare providers.

We, as medical professionals, want to “project PEAK” in our daily lives and throughout our careers. Demonstrations of professionalism are important to share with others to model these attributes and to serve as reinforcement of our commitment to all aspects, most notably, empathy and kindness.

Real Stories

The UMKC School of Medicine has collected real-life anecdotes and stories from people in the healthcare workforce in the US (shown below).

Share your story

Project PEAK serves as a repository for described acts of professionalism, empathy and kindness, those witnessed or involved in. Real life incidents are recorded in a safe and anonymous environment where others can read them and be inspired to be better and more compassionate medical professionals to our patients, peers and coworkers.

If you would like to share your own stories and experiences, please email Dr. Stacey Algren and Dr. Angellar Manguvo.

We will select unique narratives to post and create them as videos on this page.