Conclusion

The conclusion emphasizes the importance of attending to the rhetoric of medicine in achieving the best health care and system outcomes for patients, physicians, and society as a whole. The negative portrait of a physician doing something immoral for money was created by the poet Pindar as an effort to shield himself from criticism that he himself was trading in commodities, not as part of a concerted attack on physicians per se. This chapter proposes that physicians should work actively on their self-presentation, not through artificial marketing strategies but by shaping a practice and profession that clearly puts patients’ welfare at its center.