Medical Professionalism Across Cultures: A Literature Review

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. The review aims to identify the cultural perspectives of medical professionalism by identifying relevant literature from the Middle East, East/South Asia, and the Western world that discuss definitions. A literature search was conducted using the "Summon" search engine, and 200 articles sorted by relevancy were manually reviewed. Based on the surveys and documents gathered from each of the regions, the definitions seem to be fairly consistent in their recognition of characteristics important to the concept of medical professionalism. These include several characteristics, with some of the most common being personal character, respect for patient autonomy, responsibility, and social obligations; the main difference lies in emphasis with the West focusing on societal issues and patient rights, the Middle East focusing on morality and personal character, and East Asia focusing on respect, responsibility, and other duties. These differences are reviewed and the cultural sources are further expanded upon.