Introduction

The most significant challenges to respecting patient knowledge arise from the disconnects between the treatments patients desire and the treatments doctors provide. This chapter compares the professional sectors in Japan and the UK. It draws upon magazine articles and other media sources to interrogate how atopic dermatitis has been discussed in different ways at different times. Then in 2000, the Japanese Association of Dermatologists released guidelines that listed steroids as the first choice for atopic dermatitis treatment. Yoshihito Kodama researched medical treatment in medieval Italy and found that in both Western Europe and Japan, the profession of ‘doctor’ was originally a humble one. Medical knowledge production by patients is primarily through their involvement in medical research practices. While patient narratives have become a central research topic in medical anthropology, research into patient knowledge has mostly been limited to scientific studies. The chapter also provides an overview of this book.