Bard Bard In medieval Gaelic and British culture, a bard was a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or noble), to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities. Originally a specific, lower class of poet, contrasting with the higher rank known as "fili" in Ireland and Highland Scotland, with the decline of living bardic tradition in the modern period the term "bard" acquired generic meanings of an author or minstrel, especially a famous one. For example, William Shakespeare, and Rabindranath Tagore,
Institute on Medicine as a Profession the local, state and national level. It is also a partner and co-sponsor of the China-US Center on Medical Professionalism based in Beijing. IMAP grew from the Open Society Institute’s Medicine as a Profession initiative, which ran from 1999-2004. In 2003, the Open Society Institute gave a grant of $7.5 million to establish the Institute on Medicine as Profession as an independent entity, to be chaired by David J. Rothman, professor at Columbia University, and housed at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. The Institute has also received grants from Pew Charitable Trusts, the ABIM Foundation, the American Legacy Foundation,