The Consultant and the Patient-Physician Relationship

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Abstract
The RELATIONSHIP between the patient and the doctor is central in the practice of medicine, and writing about the subject goes back to ancient medicine.1Analysis of the relationship commonly assumes two people, one patient and one doctor.2However, especially in contemporary Western medicine, there is often more than one physician taking care of the patient. Medical care is increasingly specialized, and the number of consulting physicians for each patient is higher than ever before.3It is also not always clear who is the consulting physician and who the primary physician, and the roles may change with the patient's needs. Problems of role definition,4fragmentation of the patient's care, and communication5are correspondingly complex. Our focus will be on understanding the ideal underlying structure of the therapeutic relationship when two or more physicians are caring for a patient. Consultant physicians (physicians with special expertise asked