Can a pregnant woman request an ultrasound for the sole purpose of determining gender and/or to obtain a “keepsake” image of her fetus? Starting or Ending a Patient/Physician Relationship Is a physician obliged to treat a patient?
• The patient has an established relationship with the physician and his/her failure to address an ongoing problem might be harmful (and/or when failure to attend might constitute abandonment); or • Delay in attending to a patient’s problem might result in serious harm to that patient. Can a physician conduct a “meet and greet” interview prior to accepting a new patient into his/her practice? Like any effective relationship, a patient-physician relationship is built on principles of trust and honest two-way communication, which should be established at the first meeting. While a “meet and greet” meeting is deemed acceptable practice for physicians to get to know a new patient and learn of his/her health concerns and history, it may not be used as a means to select the “easy patients” and screen out those with more difficult health concerns, such as chronic disease. In addition, a physician cannot refuse to accept patients based on human rights issues, such as age, gender, marital statu
