Doctoring: the philosophic milieu.

To understand fully a physician's role in society, and to deal successfully with the current sense of crisis, the medical profession must evolve a world-view that appropriately relates a physician to the patient, to the practice environment, to the base of knowledge, and to the physician's own sense of self. Such a world-view would be multilevel and interdisciplinary, and would be based on interactions and adaptations of physicians to life systems. Medicine's world-view must provide a philosophic milieu intérieur that leads to a proper equilibrium between medicine's technologic skills and its humanistic concerns.