# Doctor–patient relationship

The doctor-patient relationship (or patient-physician relationship) is a connection or association occurring when a physician advises, diagnoses, ameliorates, or provides treatment for a patient’s medical problems or needs. The relationship imposes ethical obligations upon the physician and usually depends upon explicit mutual consent between the physician and the patient (or the patient's guardian or surrogate).

## Quotes

* The focus of recent commentary on the doctor-patient relationship has been on trying to systematize the phenomenon. In an early attempt at categorization, Szasz and Hollender (1956) describe three basic models: activity-passivity, guidance-cooperation, and mutual participation. In contemporary terminology, the first two are commonly considered "paternalistic," while the third is seen as a "partnership." Many other descriptors have been proposed: physician and patient as friends or neighbors; doctor as priest and patient as disciple; doctor as parent, teacher, or chief tutor; patient as consumer, client, or beneficiary; doctor as fighter, provider, or caregiver; patient as a broken machine and doctor as a body mechanic.
** J. Donald Boudreau, Eric J. Cassell, and Abraham Fuks, Physicianship and the Rebirth of Medical Education. Oxford University Press. 2018. p. 68. ISBN 0199370818.
* With advances in scientific medicine and the application of ever more complicated techniques to the treatment of the sick and injured, the doctor-patient relationship as interaction between two human beings has tended to become slighted and neglected. It is this impersonalization and mechanization of treatment that are often so obnoxious to patients and which contribute not only to their dissatisfaction but also to therapeutic difficulties.
** Mark G. Field, (July 1961)"review of The Management of the Doctor-Patient Relationship. by Richard H. Blum". American Journal of Sociology 67. DOI:10.1086/223062.
* The patient-physician relationship is under siege. I believe there are two sources that underlie the distress experienced by many patients and physicians in their interactions with each other. First, there is an intensification of the tension between the science and the art of medicine. Second, there are severe strains related to the rapid changes in the economics of medical practice. Concern about tensions between the science and the art of medicine is hardly new.
** Richard M. Glass, M.D., (1996). "The patient-physician relationship: JAMA focuses on the center of medicine". JAMA 275 (2): 147–148. DOI:10.1001/jama.1996.03530260061033.
* Since becoming an abortion provider in 1991, I have watched as barriers to abortion have been erected by legislatures around the country. Many laws have undermined the doctor–patient relationship — mandating that doctors say things to patients that are blatantly untrue, requiring that specific tests be performed whether the doctor thinks they are necessary or not, and requiring waiting periods regardless of whether the woman and her doctor think she is confident in her decision.
** Deborah J. Oyer, M.D., (2012). "Playing politics with the doctor–patient relationship". New England Journal of Medicine 366, (24): 2326–2327.

## See also

* Health care
* Hippocratic Oath
* Medicine
* Physician

## External links

Encyclopedic article on Doctor–patient relationship on Wikipedia