The future of the global physicians' movement.

the same time that the public image of physicians has been suffering in many countries, doctors have become important symbols of new global thinking. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and Médecins sans Frontières (known, along with Doctors for the World, as the "French doctors" movement) have actively pioneered and articulated a new global ethic for physicians and other health workers. IPPNW has demonstrated the tremendous power and influence that physicians united across borders can potentially command. The "French doctors" have placed action -the relief of suffering -above national borders and political considerations, thereby helping to revitalize the meaning of humanism in medicine. Both movements have required considerable courage, for they have challenged the status quo that embedded the physician so firmly within a national or administrative or organizational context. And both movements have required action -action that liberated physicians by plunging them into unfamiliar situations and considerable controversy. Now, in turning from the past towards the future, we should first paraphrase Sir Issac Newton, who stated that we can all see as far as we can today because we stand on the shoulders of the giants who preceded us. So with the international physicians movement: the Lowns and Kouchners -to use one from each movement to represent many -have brought us to this place and time, to be able to reflect now on a future so influenced by a collective history, shaped by their inspiration. Each of these leaders -true to their own ideals and with courage and considerable charisma -would urge us now to challenge and then to break with the status quo of the very movements they helped to create. Not for the sake of change, but to ensure that organizations and institutions, with their weight and momentum, do not inadvertently crush or muffle the creative aspirations that have emerged precisely because the movement created the space within which such energies could emerge and flourish.