In addition to developing and distributing this consensus document, the conference sponsors have arranged to evaluate the impact of the conference on the relationships among the patient-physician participants. The hypothesis evaluated through this research is: Patients and physicians will indicate enhanced understanding of aspects of the patient-physician relationship on a survey after participating in a focused meeting. The evaluation includes a survey of physician and patient participants administered before the meeting and again one to six months afterward to measure change in attitudes, beliefs and self-reported actions. Results from this research will be released when available. In addition, while the stated purpose of this document is to define an ideal state of the pa-tient-physician relationship, the conferees also recognize that there are times when it may be necessary for one party or the other to terminate that relationship. In such circumstances, the conferees concurred that each party has a responsibility to assure a smooth and safe transition to a new physician.
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