INTRODUCTION: FRAMING THE ISSUE

This book is devoted to the teaching and learning of medical professionalism. As is true of virtually all discussions of medical professionalism, its principal focus is on what individual physicians and the professional bodies composing organized medicine can and must do to sustain medical professionalism. So too was the focus of the physician Charter, which has been hailed appropriately as a milestone in the profession's efforts to fulfill its contract with society. The Charter called on physicians to affirm three principles underlying professionalism – the primacy of patient interest, patient autonomy, and social justice – and laid out ten categories of responsibilities for physicians to discharge in actualizing those principles.

Clearly, the need for physicians, both individually and collectively, to understand the nature of professionalism, to exemplify the attributes and behaviors required to manifest professionalism, and to appreciate the contemporary threats to professionalism's continued survival cannot be overestimated. But its critical importance notwithstanding, such inwardly directed emphasis leaves unexamined the public's stake in medical professionalism and the role the public must play to ensure that it continues to obtain the benefits of professionalism.