The doctor-patient relationship in the new century

The tremendous neuroscience advances and technological developments of the last several decades have led to an increasingly sophisticated appreciation of the nature of brain function and how it is modified. Even with these advances, our need to be skilled in developing and maintaining a therapeutic relationship with patients to maximize treatment effectiveness still exists. How to integrate our scientific advances with our humanistic approach to patient care, in light of evolving mental health care delivery systems changes and an increasingly well informed patient population, and to continue to provide a multi-focal approach to psychiatric education, remains the major challenge for psychiatry in the new century.