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Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Iris Fixation via External Pentagram Suturing

Iris Fixation via External Pentagram Suturing

Published on: May 5, 2022

On humility.

Jack Coulehan¹

¹Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794-8335, USA. jcoulehan@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

Annals of Internal Medicine

|August 4, 2010

Summary

Humility in medical education is a difficult but essential virtue. It requires resilience and self-awareness, not weakness, to effectively care for patients.

Area of Science:

Medical Education
Bioethics
Professionalism in Medicine

Background:

The new professionalism movement emphasizes traditional medical virtues.
Humility is a challenging virtue in a medical culture often perceived as arrogant.
This virtue appears countercultural but is crucial for effective patient care.

Purpose of the Study:

To explore the concept and practice of humility in medical education.
To reframe humility not as weakness, but as a strength requiring resilience.
To define the manifestations of humility in the context of patient care.

Main Methods:

Conceptual analysis of medical virtues and professionalism.
Exploration of the psychological and emotional aspects of humility.

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Iris Fixation via External Pentagram Suturing

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Published on: May 5, 2022

Discussion of humility's role in the physician-patient relationship.

Main Results:

Humility is not weakness; it demands toughness and emotional resilience.
Key manifestations include self-awareness, empathic openness, and gratitude for the privilege of care.
Humility can coexist with, and should not be diminished by, pride in medical achievements.

Conclusions:

Humility is a vital, albeit difficult, virtue in medical professionalism.
Practicing humility enhances the quality of patient care and the physician's role.
Medical education should foster humility alongside other core virtues.