Physicians should find a way to balance their responsibility to care for individual patients with their desire to serve as public policy advocates so that they do not become overwhelmed in handling both roles.
A physician advocate who has taken public advocacy stances against the federal government while employed by the government talks about the conflicts that arise between medicine and politics.
Although members of the medical profession are divided on the issue of physician-assisted suicide, they should continue to responsibly advance the discourse on end-of-life care through use of the media and the policies of physician membership organizations.
A physician argues that every clinician should expand themselves beyond individual patient care and on some level adopt a public role within their community.
Physicians need to exhaust every possible alternative to bring about political changes before resorting to breaking the law as an act of civil disobedience.
Physicians need to exhaust every possible alternative to bring about political changes before resorting to breaking the law as an act of civil disobedience.
The national physicians' strikes in South Korea in 2000 succeeded in raising public awareness of defects in the Korean medical system and the need to reconcile the government health insurance system and private doctors.