Abstract: Objective To understand medical professionalism based on the news reports during COVID-19 pandemic. Methods The data were collected from China News Network dealing with COVID-19 from January 23 to April 8, 2020, and manually tagged the vocabulary of relevant medical professionals. Delphi method was used to classify the vocabulary and to establish the framework of physician professionalism during the pandemic. Based on the statistical analysis on the quantity of related news reports and key words, the evolution of professionalism news theme was shown. Results Totally eight subdomains of medical professionalism was identified as respecting and protecting lives, healing the wounded and rescuing the dying, willingness to dedication, love without borders, solidarity and cooperation, responsibility for duty, confidence and firmness and fearlessness and bravery. Conclusions The subdomains of confidence and firmness, and fearlessness and bravery are the specific patterns of medical professionalism during COVID-19 pandemic, which are manifested by the confidence in working together to fight against the pandemic and the heroic spirit. Medical educators should add these contents in the process of teaching medical professionalism.

Key words: COVID-19, Medical professionalism, Text analysis, Public health emergencies