ABSTRACT
Just as every clinical interaction between a healthcare professional (HCP) and patient will have a professional, ethical and legal component, it can be said that every learning interaction should be viewed similarly. This chapter focuses on the patient in the primary healthcare setting, with particular focus in consent and the ethical distortions of task focus and observation on the learner consultation. It discusses the Hippocratic duty to teach and ethical issues relating to the needs of learners. The chapter looks at more systemic concerns such as curricula and workforce development as well as how professional diversity and the dispersed nature of primary healthcare may have ethical import. Dealing with learners' issues, described largely, could be said to be part of the teacher's lot: whether they are progression problems, pastoral difficulties or any other variation. A distinctive characteristic of patient care in the community is the distributed nature of its organisation.
