ABSTRACT
The mode of access to patienthood is a home visit by a doctor, a prospective patient's visit to a physician's office, a clinic, or an emergency room, or the patient's admission to a hospital or institution. Office visits are voluntary. Patients come after treatments they have tried by themselves have failed. They still have pain and are not getting any better. They have become concerned and now have added physician suffering to physical distress. Physicians have voluntarily chosen their profession because of their concern for the woe and weal of others. They are prepared for clinical encounters by their knowledge and many altruistic emotions. They meet their patients pain and suffering with concern, sympathy, and compassion. Patients needs evoke a corresponding obligation. Of course, many visits to physicians do not involve full patient-physician relationship. Such visits include those made for examinations to qualify for insurance, workers' compensation, military induction, summer camp, and those made because of minor illnesses.
