# The Patient-Physician Relationship: Medical Students’ Perceptions in a Novel Course

## TL;DR

Medical students explored how patient-physician relationships are affected by modern changes in healthcare through a seminar course.

## Contribution

A contemporary elective course was developed to examine the evolving patient-physician relationship and its impact on physician well-being.

## Key findings

- Students analyzed how social and cultural changes influence patient-physician dynamics.
- The course highlighted environmental factors that can either support or hinder physician well-being.
- Modern challenges in medical practice were linked to the emotional experiences of physicians.

## Abstract

The patient-physician relationship, especially in the case of severely ill patients, is often fraught with anxiety, grief, and guilt in the physician who may come to feel that he or she has failed the patient and thereby becomes a “second victim.” This notion was first explored in a 1973 publication (Artiss and Levine N Engl J Med 288(23):1210-4, 1973) that described a novel interactive seminar series for oncology fellows that had been designed to address and possibly remedy the frequent disquiet experienced by young physicians in this setting. Fifty years later, the medical student co-authors of this Perspective enrolled in an elective course that comprised a similar series of interactive seminars, now addressing the contemporary patient-physician relationship. The earlier paper was employed as a historical background, and the framework of the course then broadened such that the students considered the current environmental changes in medical practice (social, cultural, financial, legal, policy) that may be linked to the character of individual patient-physician relationships. This essay reports on the students’ perception of such relationships, and on the environmental elements that may be helpful or harmful to the well-being of both patients and physicians.