The well-being of physician relationships

When I began lecturing on marriage to medical students and physicians about 25 years ago, I used a cartoon to introduce my lectures. The cartoon showed 2 physicians having lunch together in the hospital. The caption says: “Show me a doctor whose wife is happy, and I'll show you a man who's neglecting his practice.” Table 1 Expectations that people bring to a relationship Hopes Needs (conscious and unconscious) Social values Family expectations Economics Religion Ethnicity Fit of the 2 individuals View it in a separate window Fast-forward now to the 21th century and consider the changed demographics: 50% of physicians are women, lots of spouses are men, many physicians do not have wives or husbands but “partners” (who may be the opposite or same sex), and few physicians have or make the time to eat together in the hospital cafeteria. But, with some gender-neutral modernizing, isn't the caption still apt? Aren't physicians still torn between their calling—the needs of their patients—and the needs of their families? Don't some physicians still think that their patients come first and that their spouses or partners must simply understand? In this article, I attempt to answer 4 questions: What do we know about healthy, intimate relationships? What are some of the unique challenges to a relationship posed by a career in medicine? What is the effect of a healthy relationship on physician well-being? What are some strategies to create and maintain relationship intimacy?