Professionalism in Kurosawa's medical dramas.

Film director Akira Kurosawa (1918-1998) portrayed doctors and patients in 4 films that spanned the most productive phase in his career: Drunken Angel, The Quiet Duel, Ikiru, and Red Beard. Observing death and destruction during the Second World War and the social disintegration that followed it in Japan, Kurosawa viewed the world as a dispiriting, dangerous, and chaotic place. His response was an optimistic and humanist view that life's meaning lies in the service to others. Because his main characters are doctors and patients, the films have a connection to today's medical community trying to define a modern concept of professionalism and what it means to be a physician.