On personal responsibility in medicine.

Enabling patients to make lasting behavioural change is one of the enduring challenges doctors face. The success of our medical treatment and preventative health measures relies heavily on our patients exercising personal responsibility, however, we rarely question our assumptions about what this looks like and how it is best enabled in clinical practice. Theoretical models of the individual and their ensuing responsibility are important because they influence the nature and expectations of the relationships we engage in with our patients as well as influencing how we interpret patient behaviour. Individuals with an ensembled construction of individualism and ensuing locus of responsibility, whether culturally or socioeconomically influenced, may not respond as well to the dominant Western construct of personal responsibility we commonly assume of our patients. We must broaden our notions of what constitutes an individual and their locus of responsibility in order to reduce inequities within our treatment outcomes.