What constitutes altruism in the present medical context?

Abstract

Altruism is one of the core components of medical professionalism as specified by the American Board of Internal medicine (ABIM) in their ‘Project Professionalism’ document. (Stobo, J., Kohen, J., Kimball, H., LaCombe, M., Schechter, G., & Blank, 1995) Conventionally in the medical context, it was understood as a selfless concern for patients without the expectation of an external reward,(Xiao et al., 2021) almost bordering on self-sacrifice (Harris, 2018). Even the feelings of self-satisfaction and gratification were questioned when considering this service to others. This imparted an almost messiah-like image to the doctors for a long time, which they had to strive to uphold and were bound to fall short. They were doomed to harbor guilt for and thus hide a profit-based motivation to practice(O’Riordan, 2019).