# 医師法 / Medical Practitioners' Act — 第十七条 (Article 17) - Law: 医師法 (Medical Practitioners' Act), 昭和二十三年法律第二百一号 - English title "Medical Practitioners' Act": Ministry of Justice translation - Kind: Act — the distinction between 法律 (Act), 政令 (Cabinet Order), 省令 (Ministerial Order) and 条例 (local ordinance) decides who may issue it and what it may say. - Provision: 第十七条 (Article 17) — address `art-17` - Text in force since: 2026-05-21 - URL (the page that opens at this provision): https://japanlaw.org/en/medical-practitioners-act/art-17 - Permanent URL (e-Gov law ID, never renamed): https://japanlaw.org/l/323AC0000000201/art-17 - Every provision below carries its address and both URLs on the line under it. - Japanese text: e-Gov 法令検索, Digital Agency (デジタル庁). English: as marked on each line below. Only the Japanese as published by the government has legal effect; the text below is a copy of it. Every English rendering below is a translation and says which kind: the Ministry of Justice's translation, or this site's machine translation, whose model and date the Sources list names. They are never merged and never substituted for one another. --- ### 第十七条 art-17 · https://japanlaw.org/en/medical-practitioners-act/art-17 · https://japanlaw.org/l/323AC0000000201/art-17 **第一項** 医師でなければ、医業をなしてはならない。 art-17/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/en/medical-practitioners-act/art-17/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/l/323AC0000000201/art-17/par-1 No person except a medical practitioner may engage in medical practice. Ministry of Justice translation — Japanese Law Translation Database System ## Cited by 2 provisions cite this one. No official source publishes this direction. - 医師法 第十七条の二第一項 — https://japanlaw.org/en/medical-practitioners-act/art-17-2/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/l/323AC0000000201/art-17-2/par-1 - 医師法 第三十一条第一項第一号 — https://japanlaw.org/en/medical-practitioners-act/art-31/par-1/item-1 · https://japanlaw.org/l/323AC0000000201/art-31/par-1/item-1 --- ## Sources - e-Gov 法令検索, Digital Agency (デジタル庁) — 医師法 — the text in force from 2026-05-21 (https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/323AC0000000201/20260521_505AC0000000063), retrieved 2026-10-09 - Japanese Law Translation Database System, Ministry of Justice (法務省) — Medical Practitioners' Act — Ministry of Justice translation (https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3992/tb), retrieved 2026-10-09 - This site's parser, version 165 — 医師法 — structure, counts, cross-references and defined terms, computed 2026-10-09