Terminating the Physician-Patient Relationship in Primary Care

Abstract

Primary care and family practice training programs stress the importance of establishing and maintaining the physician-patient relationship in providing longitudinal health care. However, the limited duration of these three-year programs builds discontinuity into the relationship. To our knowledge, the process of terminating the physician-patient relationship in primary care practice has not been addressed in the medical literature. We studied eight different patterns of patients' responses to learning of the departure of their primary care physicians. We have developed a set of guidelines for terminating the physician-patient relationship in an ambulatory, primary care setting. ( JAMA 241:819-822, 1979)