Living as we do in a time of total crisis, it is imperative that occasionally we should consider some ideas which are of concern to all physicians and have a peculiar propriety in the pages of a journal of this sort. One of such ideas is the concept of the profession in the contemporary world.
This is no abstract business but a matter of the greatest importance to members of the medical profession, for the social implications of medicine are pressing upon us in a mounting degree, and we can no longer isolate ourselves in the consulting room or the pathological laboratory. Medicine must join with the other professions, the social sciences, philosophy, and the humanities in the defense of human values, and in the solving of the many social and economic problems in our midst.
Any consideration of this large and complex question involves going back to first principles