ABSTRACT
This introduction chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book concerns the continuing inability for the culture of medicine to democratize in order to improve healthcare, in the face of mounting evidence that such democratization is necessary. The culture of medical education, a pedagogical culture closely aligned with clinical, practice, has the role of shaping doctors of the future and, the author claims, is largely responsible for failing to democratize medical culture. Indeed, it argues that medical education continues, as an unintended consequence of its methods, to produce insensibility and insensitivity in medical students. Osler's vision of medicine was one of deep humanity, where 'the practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head'.
